Improving lateral resolution of optical coherence tomography for imaging of skins

We report on improving lateral resolution of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for imaging of skins using multiframe superresolution technique. Through introduction of suitable slight transverse positional shifts among a series of C-scans, the superresolution processing of the lateral low resolution images at each axial depth reconstructs a high resolution image. Superresolution processing of all depth layers yields a high resolution 3D image. Using known resolution photomasks, 3 times lateral resolution improvement has been confirmed for both low and high numerical aperture OCT imaging. The superresolution processed OCT 3D skin image provides much more feature details for all subsurface depth layers within the OCT axial imaging range.