Title:
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Combinations of techniques for the
advancement of scanning laser
ophthalmology and optical coherence tomography
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In this thesis methods of eye imaging are investigated, primarily optical
coherence tomography (OCT) and scanning laser ophthalmology (SLO).
These are two well established technologies. This thesis investigates the
combination of techniques to improve resolution, sensitivity and the amount
of information that can be extracted from a device.
There are three systems presented in the thesis. The first generates on-axis
and off axis confocal retinal images simultaneously by way of a drilled
mirror. Off-axis imaging provides greater depth penetration, but at the cost
of resolution.
The second system combines three technologies; SLO, time domain (TD)
OCT and adaptive optics (AO). The system is able to generate simultaneous
en-face SLO and OCT images, whilst the AO closed loop corrects for
aberrations enhancing the intensity and resolution of the images in both
modes. This system is used in several investigative directions; the effect of
deformable mirror dynamics on the acquired image; the OCT channel is
used to investigate the confocal profile; the performance of the deformable
mirror with regards to its focus control is investigated; the focus control is
used to generate 3D confocal images. Finally, the system is converted to a
balanced Fourier domain (FD) OCT system. It has previously been assumed
that excess photon noise (that balanced detection is used to remove) is not
significant due to the limitations of the CCD camera used in an FD system's
spectrometers, however, CCD cameras have since been developed, with
increased depths of quantum wells and balanced detection offers other
advantages, such as the removal of auto correlation terms from an image.
The third system investigated is a TD-OCT system that spectrally separates
the broadband source into discrete channels at detection. It can be viewed as
a hybrid system, combining TD and FD OCT. A system such as this may be
used to reduce the shot noise of a time domain system, or it may be used to
make spectroscopic measurements. Both are investigated in this thesis,
dispersion was measured as well as absorption profiles and a preliminary
investigation into the noise reduction is also presented.
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