An approach to optical reflection tomography along the geometrical thickness

We propose and demonstrate a novel optical reflection tomography along the geometrical thickness. This technique is based on simultaneous measurement of refractive index n and thickness t of a sample using the combination of a low coherence interferometer and confocal optics. The interferometer prov ides optical coherence tomography (OCT) of the dimension of the optical thi ckness(=n x t) along the optical axis, while the confocal optics gives us a nother type of reflection tomography, having the thickness dimension of nea rly t/n along the optical axis. This sort of tomography can be called confo cal reflection tomography (CRT) and has not yet been demonstrated, to our k nowledge. Simple image processing of OCT and CRT results in the desired ref lection tomographic image, showing two-dimensional refractive index distrib ution along the geometrical thickness.