Imaging and quantifying transverse flow velocity with the Doppler bandwidth in a phase-resolved functional optical coherence tomography

The Doppler bandwidth extracted from the standard deviation of the frequency shift in phase-resolved functional optical coherence tomography (F-OCT) was used to image the velocity component that is transverse to the optical probing beam. It was found that above a certain threshold level the Doppler bandwidth is a linear function of flow velocity and that the effective numerical aperture of the optical objective in the sample arm determines the slope of this dependence. The Doppler bandwidth permits accurate measurement of flow velocity without the need for precise determination of flow direction when the Doppler flow angle is within +/-15degrees perpendicular to the probing beam. Such an approach extends the dynamic range of flow velocity measurements obtained with the phase-resolved F-OCT. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.