Balanced-detection visible optical coherence tomography with a low-noise supercontinuum laser

This paper comprehensively demonstrates the efficiency of balanced detection in a visible optical coherence tomography instrument employing a low-noise supercontinuum laser. By using an innovative technique for digitally aligning camera pixels, we achieved a noise floor reduction of up to 12.8 dB across the entire imaging depth range, particularly near the zero optical path difference between the interferometer arms. The instrument presented here operates at a central wavelength of 590 nm. It delivers high-resolution images with a sensitivity of up to 74 dB in a single spectrometer configuration and 92.8 dB in a balanced configuration. The enhancement in image contrast is exemplified through images of an optical phantom and in-vivo images of a human thumb and nail.