RAPID ACQUISITION OF IN-VIVO BIOLOGICAL IMAGES BY USE OF OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY

The development of techniques for high-speed image acquisition in opti cal coherence tomography (OCT) systems is essential for suppressing mo tion artifacts when one is imaging Living systems. We describe a new O CT system for performing micrometer-scale, cross-sectional optical ima ging at four images/s. To achieve OCT image-acquisition times of less than 1 s, we use a piezoelectric fiber stretcher to vary the reference arm delay. A Kerr-lens mode-locked chromium-doped forsterite laser is employed as the low-coherence source for the high-speed OCT system. D ynamic, motion-artifact-fi ee in vivo imaging of a beating Xenopus lae vis (African frog) heart is demonstrated. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America