Low coherence full field interference microscopy or optical coherence tomography: Recent advances, limitations and future trends

Although low coherence microscopy (LCM) has been known for long time in the context of interference microscopy, coherence radar and white light interferometry, the whole subject has attracted a wide interest in the last two decades particularly accelerated by the entrance of OCT, as a noninvasive powerful technique for biomedical imaging. Today LCM can be classified into two types, both acts as three-dimensional imaging tool. The first is low temporal coherence microscopy; also known as optical coherence tomography (OCT), which is being used for medical diagnostics. The second is full field OCT in various modes and applied to various applications. FF-OCT uses low spatial and temporal coherence similar to the well-known coherence probe microscope (CPM) that have been in use for long time in optical metrology. The CPM has many advantages over conventional microscopy in its ability to discriminate between different transparent layers in a scattering medium thus allowing for precise noninvasive optical probing of dense tissue and other turbid media. In this paper the status of this technology in optical metrology applications will be discussed, on which we have been working to improve its performance, as well as its limitations and future prospective.