Enhanced joint spectral and time domain optical coherence tomography for quantitative flow velocity measurement

Recently, a new method called joint spectral and time domain optical coherence tomography (STdOCT) for flow velocity measurement in spectral domain OCT (SD OCT) was presented. This method analyzes the detected time-resolved interference fringe spectra by using a two-dimensional fast Fourier transformation (2D FFT) to determine directly the Doppler frequency shift instead of calculating the phase difference at each depth position of adjacent A-scans. There, it was found that STdOCT is more robust for measurements with low signal to noise ratio than the classic phase-resolved Doppler OCT (DOCT) making it attractive first for imaging fast flow velocities at which a strong Doppler angle dependent signal damping occurs due to interference fringe washout and second for investigating large blood vessels with a big diameter and a highly damped signal of blood with increasing depth due to strong scattering and absorption in the near-infrared wavelength range. In the present study, we would like to introduce an enhanced algorithm for STdOCT permitting a more precise flow velocity measurement in comparison to the conventional STdOCT. The new method determines the amplitude of the broadened Doppler frequency shift by calculating the center of gravity via the complex analytical signal as a result of the second FFT instead of detecting the maximum intensity signal. Furthermore, the comparison with phase-resolved DOCT was done experimentally by using a flow phantom consisting of a 1% Intralipid emulsion and a 320 mu m glass capillary. As a result, the enhanced STdOCT and DOCT processed data are completely equivalent.