Ultrahigh resolution optical imaging of cellular structures of high scattering biological tissues with whole field optical coherence microcopy

摘要

Whole filed optical coherence microscopy system is used to image the cellular structures of highly scattering, as opposed to relatively transparent, biological tissues. The system used has imaging resolutions of 0.7 x 0.9 microns for axial x transversal directions, respectively, which represents arguably the highest resolution in the OCT filed reported so far, but with the compromise that imaging depth is less than that of the conventional OCT systems. Porcine tissues of articular cartilage and bronchus are used in the experimental demonstrations. Results demonstrate that whole filed OCT is capable of delineating faithfully the cells, nuclei and fiber bundles with an imaging depth up to 0.4 mm. It is envisaged that this technique would have an enormous applications in histopathology and other biological applications.