Numerical Simulated Concept and Mechanical Proof of Concept for a Transmission OCT (tOCT)

Optical coherence tomography is a very powerful tool in imaging methods, but its practical use is limited due to the shallow scan depth. A concept draft of a transmission OCT is presented, which eliminates the greatest limitation of the OCT – the small penetration depth. The functional principle, based on the basic structure of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer, is developed in a numerical simulation in OpticStudio. The numerical setup includes beam expander and beam compressor systems to maximize the contrast generated in the interference pattern and the design of an A–scan to realize a depth scan. As the result, the numerical simulation of the complete setup is presented and the concept is then demonstrated in a simplified mechanical setup without an