Determination of the scattering anisotropy with optical coherence tomography.

In this work we demonstrate measurements with optical coherence tomography (OCT) of the scattering phase function in the backward direction and the scattering anisotropy parameter g. Measurements of the OCT attenuation coefficient and the backscattering amplitude are performed on calibrated polystyrene microspheres with a time-domain OCT system. From these measurements the phase function in the backward direction is determined. The measurements are described by the single scattering model and match Mie calculations very well. Measurements on Intralipid demonstrate the ability to determine the g of polydisperse samples and, for Intralipid, g = 0.35 ± 0.03 is measured, which is well in agreement with g from literature. These measurements are validated using the Intralipid particle size distribution determined from TEM measurements. Measurements of g and the scattering phase function in the backward direction can be used to monitor changes in backscattering, which can indicate morphological changes of the sample or act as contrast enhancement mechanism.

Quantitative comparison of the OCT imaging depth at 1300 nm and 1600 nm.

One of the present challenges in optical coherence tomography (OCT) is the visualization of deeper structural morphology in biological tissues. Owing to a reduced scattering, a larger imaging depth can be achieved by using longer wavelengths. In this work, we analyze the OCT imaging depth at wavelengths around 1300 nm and 1600 nm by comparing the scattering coefficient and OCT imaging depth for a range of Intralipid concentrations at constant water content. We observe an enhanced OCT imaging depth for 1600 nm compared to 1300 nm for Intralipid concentrations larger than 4 vol.%. For higher Intralipid concentrations, the imaging depth enhancement reaches 30%. The ratio of scattering coefficients at the two wavelengths is constant over a large range of scattering coefficients and corresponds to a scattering power of 2.8 ± 0.1. Based on our results we expect for biological tissues an increase of the OCT imaging depth at 1600 nm compared to 1300 nm for samples with high scattering power and low water content.