Patent ID: 8559016

Claim:
A method for optical coherence tomography, comprising: injecting light with an average wavelength into an interferometer; irradiating a specimen with light emitted by the interferometer, the interferometer comprising a beam splitter and a reflector; collecting light reflected by the specimen with a detector; bringing the reflector into at least three different rest positions having different optical distances away from the beam splitter by displacing the reflector by one step size, respectively, the step size being smaller than the average wavelength; while the reflector is located in each of the at least three different rest positions, collecting the light reflected by the specimen at a specific depth of the specimen a number of times by the detector and converting the light into a number of corresponding interference images, wherein the interference images are obtained by collecting coherent light; coherent averaging the interference images obtained by collecting coherent light for each of the at least three different rest positions of the reflector by using only those interference images obtained with each of the at least three rest positions of the reflector which were recorded at times at which the reflector in the respective position was located in a rest position, wherein an averaged interference image is obtained for each of the at least three different rest positions of the reflector, to obtain at least three averaged interference images; and after coherent averaging of said number of interference images is obtained for each of the at least three rest positions of the reflector, demodulating the at least three averaged interference images obtained for the at least three different rest positions of the reflector to obtain a two-dimensional image of a plane E located at depth T within the specimen.