Balanced detection spectral-domain optical coherence tomography with a single line-scan camera

This paper describes a balanced detection spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (BD-SD-OCT) system for suppressing autocorrelation (AC) artifacts and increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The system employed three optical fiber couplers to generate two phase-opposed interference spectra that were acquired by a single line-scan camera simultaneously. When compared with conventional unbalanced detection SD-OCT systems, the developed BD-SD-OCT system improved the SNR by 5.4-6 dB and suppressed the AC term by 5-10 dB. The imaging quality of the BD-SD-OCT system was evaluated by in vivo imaging of human nail folds and retinas.