Patent ID: 8605287

Claim:
An imager, comprising: a light source; a sample arm that receives light from the light source, directs the light to a sample, and captures light returning from the sample; a reference arm that provides different modulations corresponding to differing imaging depths in the sample, the reference arm comprising: a plurality of reference paths being modulated to have different carrier frequencies corresponding to the differing imaging depths in the sample; a first splitter/coupler forming the plurality of reference paths, wherein at least one reference path comprises optics coupled to a mirror and a modulator; a detector system to receive the captured light from the sample and the different modulations provided by the reference arm; and a processor that receives signals from the detector system and executes instructions to: simultaneously obtain a plurality of overlapping images from the plurality of reference paths, the plurality of overlapping images corresponding to the differing imaging depths in the sample; combine the simultaneously obtained plurality of overlapping images into a combined dataset, the combined dataset having a spatial frequency dimension and a transverse dimension; perform a transform on the combined dataset along the transverse dimension for each value in the spatial frequency dimension to form a plurality of distributions along a carrier frequency dimension in the transformed dataset; spectrally separate the plurality of distributions into a plurality of separated data based on a carrier frequency of each of the plurality of separated data; and perform mathematical operations on each of the plurality of separated data to form a plurality of images corresponding with differing reference paths.