2. OCT technology

2.1 Temporal OCT (TD-OCT)

The first generation of OCT systems in the 1990s were of the "temporal" type (TD-OCT), generally based on a Michelson interferometer with optical fibers (figure 4 ). In TD-OCT, the optical length of the reference arm is scanned to probe the object's depth. This scanning can be performed in a number of ways, including translating the reference mirror or stretching a long optical fiber. The object is placed in the other arm of the interferometer under a lens. An oscillating galvanometric mirror enables the focused beam to be scanned laterally. The light backscattered by the object and collected by the objective is combined at...