Patent ID: 8526004

Claim:
A method of interfacing an optical system for imaging body tissue to an ultrasound console comprising: providing a source beam; splitting the source beam into a reference beam and a sample beam; splitting the reference beam into a plurality of intermediate beams; directing each intermediate beam to a different one of a plurality of light modulators, each light modulator modulating the intermediate beam directed to that light modulator at a different unique modulation frequency; directing the sample beam at a sample; combining the sample beam, after being directed to the sample, with the plurality of modulated intermediate beams to form a light beam; converting the light beam into a detector signal using a light detector, wherein the light beam comprises the plurality of modulated intermediate beams modulated at a plurality of different modulation frequencies, each modulation frequency corresponding to a different image depth of body tissue; generating a tuner output signal from the detector using a tuner that is tuned to each of a plurality of the different modulation frequencies one at a time; converting the tuner output signal into a serial analog signal, wherein an amplitude of the serial analog signal provides image brightness information and a time position within the serial analog signal provides image depth information; and outputting the serial analog signal to the ultrasound console.