| The objective of this dissertation is to develop the optical instrumentation, electronics, and signal processing for high-resolution blood flow imaging using optical coherence tomography (OCT) in human subjects. In particular, in vivo OCT blood flow imaging, termed color Doppler OCT (CDOCT), is applied for the first time to measurements in human vasculature of the retina and skin.; CDOCT is similar to color Doppler ultrasound, whereas depth-resolved flow information is extracted from reflectivity profiles obtained from phase-sensitive, low-coherence interferometry. Although CDOCT has been demonstrated in tissue-mimicking phantoms and in living animal models, the technique has not yet been extended to blood flow imaging in humans. In this project, CDOCT was integrated with a modified slit lamp biomicroscope for imaging of retinal blood flow, and additional technical requirements necessary for retinal flow imaging were met. This system was used to acquire the first high resolution, cross-sectional images of blood flow with OCT in humans. The image acquisition rate was increased to examine retinal hemodynamics in normal subjects.; A method was introduced for improving the velocity resolution by approximately two orders of magnitude, down to ∼1 micrometer/sec, by calculating the change in the phase across sequential scans. This technique was used to achieve the highest velocity resolution to date in scattering media, and applied to imaging the human microvasculature down to the capillary level.; Finally, a modification of CDOCT based on differential phase contrast was introduced for high resolution imaging in the presence of motion artifact. This technique measures the differential Doppler frequency between two beams of orthogonal polarization states that are laterally displaced on the sample. Using polarization diversity detection, the common-mode noise was removed, enabling the measurement of flow in scattering media down to the theoretical frequency resolution. |
