Simultaneous measurements of the thickness and refractive index of microstructures in obscure specimen by optical coherence tomography

A novel technique based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) is presented to measure the microstructure and refractive index of inhomogeneous obscure specimen simultaneously. In inhomogeneous specimens, refractive index of o ne component, whose position is not known, is different from that of its su rrounding components. The microstructure and refractive index of a multimod e fiber and a lotus root specimen were measured by this technique. The resu lts verify the feasibility of this method.