Digital aberration correction enhances field of view in visible-light optical coherence microscopy

Abstract

In optical coherence microscopy, optical aberrations commonly result in astigmatism-dominated wavefront errors in the peripheral regions of the optical objective, primarily elongating the microscope’s point-spread function along the radial direction in the vicinity of the focal plane. We report on enhanced-field-of-view optical coherence microscopy through computational aberration correction in the visible-light range. An isotropic spatial resolution of 2.5 µm was achieved over an enhanced lateral field of view spanning 1.3 mm × 1.6 mm, as experimentally verified in a micro-bead phantom and further demonstrated in ex vivo tissue samples. The extended field of view achieved by the digital aberration correction facilitates the use of low-cost systems by averting the need for high-quality objectives.