Contrast enhancement of spectral domain optical coherence tomography using spectrum correction

Abstract

We report a spectrum correction method to enhance the image contrast of spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). Our method treats SD-OCT signals as the product of harmonic signals backscattered from a sample comprising a series of discrete reflectors and a window corresponding to the light source spectrum. The method restores the magnitude of the main lobe of the axial point spread function (PSF) by estimating the magnitudes of the backscattered harmonic signals and strengthens OCT signals using these estimated values. Experimental results acquired from fresh rat corneas and fixed human aortic atherosclerosis tissues show that our method provides clearer microstructural information than the conventional methods by improving the contrast to noise ratios (CNRs) by 1.4779 dB and 3.2595 dB, respectively. This improved image quality is obtained without any hardware change, making our method a cost-effective alternative to compete with hardware advances.