Patent ID: 8174704

Claim:
An optical imaging system based on a coherence frequency domain reflectometry, comprising: a light source which generates an electromagnetic wave having a chirped frequency; a splitting unit which splits the electromagnetic wave into first and second beams; a reflecting unit which reflects the first beam and re-transmits the reflected first beam to the splitting unit; an objective lens which projects the second beam onto an object to be recorded; a photodetector which transforms an interference pattern into a current signal, wherein the first beam reflected from the reflecting unit interferes with the second beam reflected from the object to generate the interference pattern; and an electronic processing unit which processes the current signal to generate an image of the object from the interference pattern, wherein the electronic processing unit comprises: an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) which samples the current signal output from the photodetector to transform the current signal into a digital signal; and a signal processor which processes one of a signal provided from the ADC and a signal stored in a storage to restore an image of the object, wherein the current signal comprises an encoded pattern that is formed by encoding a cross-sectional image of the object and a Fresnel zone pattern having a limited size, and wherein the signal processor convolutes the encoded pattern with a complex conjugate of a field function to restore the cross-sectional image of the object.