Patent ID: 8582110

Claim:
An apparatus for low coherence optical imaging, comprising: a photo detector; an optical source for providing a low coherence light beam; a main beam splitter for splitting the light beam into a sample light beam and a reference light beam having a beam width, wherein the sample light beam is projected to a sample, and a portion of the sample light beam is reflected or scattered by the sample to form an information light; a beam shifting unit for reflecting and shifting the reference light beam away from the original light path; a beam bending unit for bending the reference light beam and the information light directed by the main beam splitter to the photo detector, wherein the reference light beam and the information light are superposed to form interference patterns on the photo detector; a one-dimensional focusing element disposed between the beam bending unit and the photo detector for focusing the information light and the reference light beam on the photo detector in one dimension; a one-dimensional defocusing element disposed between the beam bending unit and the photo detector, the one-dimensional defocusing element having a defocusing dimension perpendicular to the one dimension of the one-dimensional focusing element; and a signal processing unit electrically coupled to the photo detector for analyzing the spatial information of the sample, wherein light on opposing portions of the reference light beam traverse different path lengths to arrive at the photo detector with different phases one relative to the other to thereby selectively interfere with the information light reflected or scattered from different depths of the sample, whereby a plurality of sample depths are concurrently scanned.