In-vivo Retinal Imaging by Multi-beam Spectral-domain Optical Coherence Tomography with a Novel Spectrometer

We have developed a multi-beam spectral-domain optical coherence tomography system with a single line sensor for human retina imaging. Three beams are used and the scan area is a 10-mm square on the fundus. These three beams focus on the fundus at locations 3.1 mm apart from each other to satisfy the ANSI safety standards. The line rate is 70k A-scans/s for each beam, equivalent to a total line rate of 210k A-scans/s for the three beams. The spectrometer has a single line sensor for the three beams, which leads to differences among the three beams such as pixel resolution, roll-off characteristic, and sensitivity. The 3D image is acquired by piecing the images together while calibrating the depth resolution and compensating the roll-off characteristics of each beam. We obtained an image of a healthy human retina.