Intraoral optical coherence tomography scanner with optical fiber adapter

An optical coherence tomography scanner for imaging a sample, the optical coherence tomography scanner comprising:

• a) a wavelength-tunable light source configured to generate scanning light having a range of wavelengths;
• b) a scanning probe having a scanning head and one or more optical channels that convey light to and from the scanning head, each of the one or more optical channels comprising:
• (i) a sample arm comprising optical fibers for conveying the scanning light to the sample and conveying scattered and back-reflected light from the sample to a detector,
• (ii) a reference arm comprising optical fibers for conveying reference light from the wavelength-tunable light source,
• (iii) an optical fiber or fiber system that defines an optical path distance for the sample arm or the reference arm,
• (iv) a detector that generates an output signal according to combined light from the sample arm and the conveyed reference light;
• and
• c) a digitizer that is energizable to generate digital data according to the detector output signal and to communicate the generated digital data to a computer for storage or display.