Patent ID: 8810797

Claim:
A system for optical coherence tomography comprising: an interferometer for emitting light with which a specimen is irradiated, the interferometer comprising a beam splitter and at least one reflector the optical distance of which from the beam splitter is changeable, and a detector which has a plurality of detector elements arranged in an area, by means of which light which is reflected by the specimen is collected, wherein the optical distance between the reflector and the beam splitter is changeable by an optical path which is substantially greater than an average wavelength of light which is injected into the interferometer, a change of the optical distance between the reflector and the beam splitter being implemented at a first speed v1, wherein, during the change of the optical distance between the reflector and the beam splitter by the optical path, the light reflected by the specimen is collected a number of times by the detector elements of the detector, by means of which light reflected from a number of two-dimensional sections at different depths of the specimen is collected, and wherein a specimen objective is provided by means of which light emitted by the interferometer is focused in a focus located within the specimen, during the collection of the light respectively reflected from two-dimensional sections at different depths of the specimen the imaging properties of the specimen objective being controlled synchronously with the change in optical distance between the reflector and the beam splitter, the specimen objective comprising at least one lens being moved at a second speed v2 which is lower than the first speed v1, wherein the focus comes in the region of a two-dimensional section at the respective depth of the specimen from which the reflected light is collected by means of the plurality of detector elements, wherein a plurality of reflections at different lateral positions of the two-dimensional section at the respective depth in the specimen is recorded at the same time, and two-dimensional images of an illuminated two-dimensional surface on the reflector and of the two-dimensional section at the respective depth of the specimen are of equal size and superimposed in a common image plane for every depth in the specimen, with a two-dimensional interference pattern being obtained for each two-dimensional section at the respective depth in the specimen.