Optical tissue sectioning using full field optical coherence tomography

A method for acquiring in depth section images of a first section of a volumic and scattering sample using a Full-Field Optical Coherence Tomography (FF-OCT) system comprising a full-field imaging interferometer and in depth section fluorescent images of a second section of said sample using a supplementary full-field optical sectioning imaging system comprising a structured illumination microscope, the method comprising:

• acquiring the images of said first section of the sample by:
• emitting light using a first illumination sub system,
• defining, in the full-field imaging interferometer, using a first beamsplitter, a reference arm and an object arm for receiving the sample, wherein said reference arm comprises a reference mirror and said object arm comprises a microscope objective,
• optically conjugating said sample with a detection sub-system of the full-field imaging interferometer using the microscope objective;
• and
• acquiring fluorescence images of said second section of the sample by:
• emitting light using a second illumination sub-system, separate from the first illumination sub-system, wherein the light emitted by said first and second illumination sub-systems is combined in the object arm of the full-field imaging interferometer using a second dichroic beamsplitter and said first beamsplitter,
• optically coupling using said first beamsplitter an imaging channel of said structured illumination microscope with the object arm of the full-field imaging interferometer, wherein said imaging channel comprises said microscope objective and means for generating at the focal plane of said microscope objective a variable spatial pattern illumination,
• generating at the focal plane of said microscope objective of said full-field imaging interferometer a variable spatial pattern illumination,
• forming a plurality of images for different spatial pattern illumination on a detection sub-system optically conjugated with the focal plane of said microscope objective, and
• processing said plurality of images to obtain said fluorescence images.