Depth-dependent dispersion compensation method for visible-light optical coherence tomography

Visible light optical coherence tomography (vis-OCT) is a non-invasive three-dimensional imaging technology that produces cross-sectional images of in vivo biological tissue with micrometer-scale resolution. With a center wavelength of 560 nm, the dispersion coefficient changes more rapidly with depth than near-infrared optical coherence tomography (NIR-OCT) systems. However, most vis-OCT processing workflows do not account for depth-related dispersion compensation. This dispersion mismatch at different depths can significantly degrade axial resolution when imaging the human retina and other biological or nonbiological samples with thicknesses greater than 300 micrometers. To address this issue, we report an automatic depth-dependent dispersion compensation workflow, ensuring consistent axial resolution throughout the entire imaging depth.