One, two, and three dimensional images of the internal microstructure of a sample's optical properties such as refractive index, absorption coefficient, scattering coefficient, and birefringence can be obtained. The research at MIT has primarly focused on biomedical imaging, where OCT has demonstrated dramatic contributions to several areas. This unit has been used to diagnosis and treat over 2000 patents in an ophthalmic clinic.
Ophthalmology is just the beginning.
We expect the technology to evolve into clinical trials in many new areas such as cardiology, endoscopy, and developmental biology. Continued growth of this technology will require improvements in optical sources, longitudinal scanning mechanisms, delivery and imaging optics, high speed digital detection and demodulation techniques, and image processing algorithms. As the instrumentation technology develops we will explore new applications and enhance the effectiveness of existing ones. OCT is one of the few technologies promising micron scale resolution in highly scattering media - comparable to in some cases to microtome sectioning. The future for OCT seems very bright.