We have developed a white-light interference microscope as an alternative technique to conventional optical coherence tomography (OCT). The experimental setup is based on a Linnik interferometer illuminated with a tungsten halogen lamp. En face tomographic images are obtained in real-time without scanning by computing the difference of two phase-opposed interferometric images recorded by a CCD camera. The short coherence length of the source yields an optical sectioning ability with 0.7 μm resolution (in water). Transverse resolution of 0.9 μm is achieved by using high numerical aperture microscope objectives. A shot-noise limited detection sensitivity of 90 dB can be reached with ~ 1 s acquisition time. High-resolution images of mouse and tadpole embryos are shown.

Date Published: 24 March 2005
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 5701, Three-Dimensional and Multidimensional Microscopy: Image Acquisition and Processing XII, (24 March 2005); doi: 10.1117/12.586727

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5701:
Three-Dimensional and Multidimensional Microscopy: Image Acquisition and Processing XII
Jose-Angel Conchello; Carol J. Cogswell; Tony Wilson, Editor(s)