Dispersion manipulation in optical coherence tomography with Fourier-domain optical delay line

In the last decade, Fourier-domain optical delay lines (FD-ODL) based on pulse shaping technology have emerged as a practical device for high-speed scanning and dispersion compensation in imaging interferometry such as optical coherence tomography(OCT). In this study, we investigate the effect of firstand second-order dispersion on the photocurrent signal associated with a fiber-optic OCT system implemented using a superluminescent diode centered at 950nm±35nm, an FD-ODL, and a mirror and a layered LiTaO3 which owns suitable dispersion characteristics to model a skin specimen. We present a practically useful method associated with FD-ODL to minimize the effect of dispersion through the OCT system and the specimen combined, and quantify the results using two general metrics for axial resolution.