Non-mechanical steering of the optical beam in spectral-domain Optical Coherence Tomography

Abstract

We demonstrate in a {\it proof-of-concept} experiment spectral-domain optical coherence tomography where steering of the optical beam that probes the sample in a transverse scan does not make use of any mechanical element. Steering is done with the help of a spatial light modulator, that introduces a spatially-dependent phase between the two orthogonal polarization components of an optical beam, and some optical elements that control the polarization of light. We demonstrate that making use of the non-mechanical steering system considered here, we can reproduce the main traits of imaging with standard OCT that makes use of mechanical-assisted optical beam steering.