Resolution Improvement in Optical Coherence Tomography with Segmented Spectrum Management

We demonstrate resolution improvement in an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system with multiple scans of segmented spectral bands and software signal processing. With an effective spectral full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 45 nm, centered at 950 nm, we compress the interference fringe FWHM from 31 μm down to 7 μm, which is smaller than the theoretical limit of 8.9 μm if a Gaussian spectral shape is assumed, through the combined effect of dispersion compensation and spectral shaping. With the amplitude adjustments of the OCT images of the segmented spectral bands, side-lobes can be significantly suppressed with a slight increase of the fringe envelope FWHM. With other amplitude adjustments, the envelope FWHM can be reduced to 5.6 μm at the expense of significant side-lobes.