Disclosed herein are optical integration technologies, designs, systems and methods directed toward Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and other interferometric optical sensor, ranging, and imaging systems wherein such systems, methods and structures employ tunable optical sources, coherent detection and other structures on a single or multichip monolithic integration. In contrast to contemporary, prior-art OCT systems and structures that employ simple, miniature optical bench technology using small optical components positioned on a substrate, systems and methods according to the present disclosure employ one or more photonic integrated circuits (PICs), use swept-source techniques, and employ a widely tunable optical source(s).

In another embodiment the system uses an optical photonic phased array. The phase array can be a static phased array to eliminate or augment the lens that couples light to and from a sample of interest or can be static and use a spectrally dispersive antenna and a tunable source to perform angular sweeping. The phased array can be active in 1 or 2 dimensions so as to scan the light beam in angle. The phased array can also adjust focus. The phased array can implement an optical waveform that will extend depth of field focus for imaging. The phase array can also be a separate standalone element that is fed by one or more optical fibers. The phased array can be for scanning a biomedical specimen used in conjunction with a swept-source OCT system, can be used in a free-space coherent optical communication system for beam pointing or tracking, used in LIDAR applications, or many other beam control or beam steering applications.

In an OCT imaging, a focus position in a tomographic image is determined by a first distance, a second adjustment amount, a third adjustment amount and a refractive index of a medium. The first distance is a distance between a first surface and a second surface of a wall part of a container. The second adjustment amount is a focus position adjustment amount of an objective optical system at which an intensity of reflected light from the second surface is maximized when a reference mirror is positioned at a position where an object optical path length to the first surface and a reference optical path length are equal in a condition that the objective optical system is focused on the first surface. The third adjustment amount is a focus position adjustment amount in the imaging.

An acousto-optic imaging method in which light waves and unfocused acoustic waves having various directions of propagation m are emitted in a medium, by spatially modulating the amplitude of the ultrasonic transducers of an array of transducers according to several periodic spatial amplitude modulations j, and the resulting optical signal S.sub.mj(t) is captured. For each direction of propagation m, the signals S.sub.mj(t) are spatially demodulated in order to determine a signal S.sub.m(t) used to reconstruct the image of the medium.

An observation apparatus includes a light source, a mirror, a condenser lens, an objective lens, a beam splitter, an imaging unit, and an analysis unit. The analysis unit includes an interference intensity image acquisition unit, a first complex amplitude image generation unit, a second complex amplitude image generation unit, a two-dimensional phase image generation unit, a three-dimensional phase image generation unit, and a refractive index distribution calculation unit. The analysis unit irradiates an observation object with light along each of a plurality of light irradiation directions, acquires an interference intensity image at a reference position for each of the plurality of light irradiation directions from the imaging unit, and performs necessary processing based on the interference intensity images to obtain a three-dimensional refractive index distribution of the observation object.

A low coherence imaging method comprises acquiring image data of an object with an interferometric imaging system, where the image data is from a location of the object at first and second times; determining a first depth profile from the image data from the location at the first time and a second depth profile from the image data of the location at the second time; determining a change with respect to depth between the first and second depth profiles; and determining a property, or identifying a location, of at least one dynamic particle in the object based on the change between the first and second depth profiles. The method is able to identify, analyze, and/or visualize dynamic particles with features comparable to at least fluorescein angiography, indocyanine green angiography, confocal scanning laser fluorescein angiography, confocal scanning laser indocyanine green angiography, and fluorescence microscopy images, without the use of a dye.

A method and apparatus for measuring a 3-D refractive index tensor are presented. The method for measuring a 3-D refractive index tensor according to an embodiment comprises the steps of: controlling incident light of a plane wave with respect to at least one angle and polarization; and measuring, in a polarization-dependent manner, the 2-D diffracted light of a specimen with respect to the incident light incident at the at least one angle and polarization, wherein the birefringence value and the 3-D structure of an alignment direction of molecules in the specimen having birefringence may be measured.

The present invention is intended to provide an adaptive optics system and an optical device that allow correction of wavefront phase aberration with higher accuracy than before and have a wider correction range than the conventional ones, regardless of the distance between the observation target and the fluctuation layer, and the size of the observation target. An adaptive optics system includes: a wavefront phase modulator that makes aberration correction to incident light and emits the corrected light; and an imaging-conjugated position adjustment mechanism that adjusts freely within a specimen the position of a surface imaging-conjugated with a fluctuation correction surface formed by the wavefront phase modulator. The imaging-conjugated position adjustment mechanism adjusts the fluctuation correction surface to be imaging-conjugated with a fluctuation layer existing in the specimen.

The invention provides an Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) system capable of acquiring two orthogonally polarized depth scans from a target such as the fingerprint region of a finger. In the preferred embodiment the birefringence of tissue components and, optionally, other aspects of the target are measured in order determine a characteristic of the target, such as whether it is real of fake finger.

Proposed are a three-dimensional (3D) optical tomography method and apparatus using a partially coherent light and a multi-illumination pattern. The 3D optical diffraction tomography method based on low coherence light and a multi-illumination pattern using a 3D optical diffraction tomography apparatus may include making light incident on a sample using a plurality of patterns, measuring, by an image measurement unit, different locations at different depth locations of the sample and measuring two-dimensional (2D) images of the sample, and reconstructing 3D refractive index information of the sample based on the different patterns and the 2D images obtained at the different depth locations.

An optical-fiber measurement system includes an optical transceiver comprising an optical transmitter and an optical receiver. A multi-core optical fiber has a proximal end with a first optical core coupled to the transceiver and a second optical core coupled to the transceiver, and a distal end with the first optical core coupled to a sample path that is configured to convey light collected from a sample positioned external to the multi-core optical fiber and the second optical core coupled to a reference path such that the sample path and the reference path experience mostly a same disturbance along the multi-core optical fiber. The optical receiver is configured to interferometrically detect light from the sample path and light from the reference path.