Optical coherence tomography: principles and recent developments

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a new imaging technique that uses interference in low coherent light by measuring the delay and magnitude of backscattered or reflected signals from the sample. OCT technology can provide real-time structural information with one-dimensional depth and two- and threedimensional tomography at micron-scale resolution. Besides its high spatial resolution, OCT imaging is beneficial for its non-contact and non-invasive methodology. The system is also easy to operate and relatively portable. OCT technology is mainly applied in the biomedical imaging field for diagnoses, making up for the shortcomings of the low penetration depth in confocal microscopes and the low resolution in ultrasonic imaging. At present, OCT technology has been used as the clinical standard for the diagnosis of retinal diseases, and the combination of OCT technology and endoscope technology has become an important tool for the clinical diagnosis of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases. It also provides references for early cancer diagnosis, surgical guidance and postoperative rehabilitation of musculoskeletal diseases. To broaden the application of OCT technology and improve its medical detection capabilities, researchers are committed to increasing the penetration depth of OCT imaging in biological tissue, improving the system's resolution and signal-to-noise ratio, and optimizing its overall performance. This review introduces the principle and classification of OCT systems, their applications and their recent progress in various biomedical fields.