Feasibility study of phase-sensitive imaging based on multiple reference optical coherence tomography

Multiple reference optical coherence tomography (MR-OCT) is a recently developed, low-cost and compact time-domain OCT solution for primary care and consumer level applications. A combination of a voice coil actuator and a partial mirror (PM) extends the scan range for imaging depths of approximately 1 mm in biological samples. Our previous research on MR-OCT is based only on intensity information obtained from the depth-resolved interference signal. In this Letter, we extract the phase information from the MR-OCT signal and, hence, provide an additional contrast modality. The phase sensitivity of the system is measured to be approximately 0.2 and 1.5 rad for the first and twelfth orders of reflection when using a mirror as the sample. This Letter describes first results of phase-sensitive data measured on a phantom obtained with MR-OCT. Data from a chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) is used to demonstrate the feasibility of MR-OCT for in vivo phase-sensitive imaging.