Patent ID: 7364296

Claim:
A method of optical imaging comprising: providing a sample to be imaged; measuring and correcting aberrations associated with the sample using adaptive optics; and imaging the sample by optical coherence tomography (OCT); wherein the aberrations associated with the sample are measured and corrected by (i) illuminating the sample with a point source light beam having a wavefront, (ii) detecting the wavefront of the point source light beam that is reflected from the sample with a wavefront sensor to measure wavefront distortions of the sample, and (iii) adjusting a wavefront corrector so as to compensate for the wavefront distortions that are associated with the sample; wherein the sample is imaged by (iv) generating a beam of low temporal coherence two-dimensional (2D) OCT light from a light source, (v) splitting the beam of low temporal coherence light to create a sample light beam and a reference light beam, each having an optical path length corresponding to a coherence gate position at a desired region of the sample to be imaged, (vi) illuminating the sample with the sample light beam, (vii) illuminating a reference mirror with the reference light beam, (viii) superimposing the reflected sample light beam and reflected reference light beam to obtain an interference pattern corresponding to the coherence gate position, (ix) recording the interference pattern using a detector, (x) generating a two-dimensional image of the sample from the interference pattern; and wherein steps (i)-(iii) are carried out concurrently with steps (iv)-(ix).