Line-field Fourier-domain Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging System

A full-field swept-source optical coherence tomography, OCT, imaging system, comprising:

• a swept illumination source arranged to generate a beam of light whose wavelength is swept over a range of values during imaging by the full-field swept-source OCT imaging system;
• a transfer system comprising a curved mirror having a first focal point and a conjugate second focal point, the transfer system further comprising a focusing system which is arranged to focus the beam of light generated by the swept illumination source at the first focal point, the curved mirror being arranged to guide the light beam focused at the first focal point to an imaging target via the second focal point so as to provide full-field illumination of the imaging target during imaging of the imaging target, the curved mirror being further arranged to receive light which has been scattered by the imaging target during the imaging of the imaging target and aberrated by the curved mirror to form an aberrated beam of light comprising at least one of a defocusing or distortion;
• a photodetector comprising a two-dimensional array of photodetector elements;
• an interferometer arranged to receive at least a portion of the light which has been received by the curved mirror and to generate an interference light resulting from an interference between a reference light and the at least a portion of the aberrated beam of light, and project the interference light onto the two-dimensional array of photodetector elements,
• wherein the photodetector is arranged to detect the interference light projected onto the two-dimensional array of photodetector elements during the imaging, and generate a detection signal based on the detected interference light;
• and
• OCT data processing hardware arranged to:
• generate complex volumetric OCT data of the imaging target based on the detection signal, wherein the complex volumetric OCT data has an aberration therein;
• and
• generate corrected complex volumetric OCT data by executing a correction algorithm which uses phase information encoded in the complex volumetric OCT data to correct the complex volumetric OCT data, such that the corrected complex volumetric OCT data has less of the aberration than the complex volumetric OCT data.