Patent ID: 8040524

Claim:
An optical tomography imaging system comprising: a light source; a branching section which branches a light beam emitted from said light source into a measuring light beam and a reference light beam; an optical probe having an optical fiber which propagates said measuring light beam, a measurement section which is placed at a tip of said optical fiber to irradiate a measurement target with said measuring light beam and to pick up a reflected light beam of said measuring light beam, and a sheath which encloses circumferential walls of said optical fiber and said measurement section and which is partially formed from a transparent material in an area where said measuring light beam exits said measurement section and said reflected light beam enter said measurement section; a driving section which rotates said measurement section and said optical fiber; a multiplexing section which combines said reflected light beam detected by said measurement section with said reference light beam to create an interference light beam; an interference light beam detecting section which detects said interference light beam as interference signals; a contact detecting section which detects a contact area in which said optical probe and said measurement target are in contact with each other; and a tomographic image obtaining section which obtains a tomographic image from the detected interference signals, wherein said contact detecting section calculates from the detected interference signals a distance between said optical probe and said measurement target, and uses the calculated distance to detect a contact area in which said optical probe and said measurement target are in contact with each other.