阅读说明：本技术 基于傅里叶域光学相干层析成像的色散补偿方法 (Dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography ) 是由 郭翔宇 孙利群 于 2021-07-28 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明公开了一种基于傅里叶域光学相干层析成像的色散补偿方法,包括：获取FD-OCT系统对样品成像的A-scan的干涉信号；对干涉信号进行预处理,以从干涉信号中获得仅含有样品光参考光相干信号的预处理后的干涉信号；提供仅含有二阶色散系数项和三阶色散系数项的色散相位数据组；根据预处理后的干涉信号和色散相位数据组,获得深度空间数据组；通过对深度空间数据组的寻峰操作,获得色散补偿相位数据；根据预处理后的干涉信号和色散补偿相位数据,获得色散补偿后的深度图像数据。本发明实现了对FD-OCT系统成像的准确快捷的色散补偿,在确保数据处理实时性、满足实时成像要求的同时保证了FD-OCT系统的高分辨率成像。(The invention discloses a dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography, which comprises the following steps: acquiring an interference signal of an A-scan for an FD-OCT system to image a sample; preprocessing the interference signal to obtain a preprocessed interference signal only containing the sample light reference light coherent signal from the interference signal; providing a dispersion phase data set containing only second-order dispersion coefficient terms and third-order dispersion coefficient terms; obtaining a depth space data set according to the preprocessed interference signal and the dispersion phase data set; obtaining dispersion compensation phase data through peak searching operation of the depth space data set; and obtaining depth image data after dispersion compensation according to the preprocessed interference signal and the dispersion compensation phase data. The invention realizes accurate and rapid dispersion compensation for FD-OCT system imaging, ensures real-time data processing, meets real-time imaging requirements, and ensures high-resolution imaging of the FD-OCT system.)

1. A dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography comprises the following steps:

acquiring an interference signal of an A-scan of a Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) system for imaging a sample;

preprocessing the interference signal to obtain a preprocessed interference signal, wherein the preprocessed interference signal only contains a sample light reference light coherent signal;

providing a dispersion phase data set containing only second-order dispersion coefficient terms and third-order dispersion coefficient terms;

multiplying the preprocessed interference signal by the dispersion phase data set, and then performing fast inverse Fourier transform (IFFT) to obtain a depth space data set;

obtaining dispersion compensation phase data through peak searching operation of the depth space data group;

and multiplying the dispersion compensation phase data by the preprocessed interference signal, and then performing IFFT to obtain depth image data after dispersion compensation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the preprocessing the interference signal comprises:

and removing the reference light self-coherent signal and the sample light self-coherent signal in the interference signal.

3. The dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography of claim 1, wherein:

the dispersion phase data group comprises a plurality of dispersion phase data;

and the second-order dispersion coefficient and/or the third-order dispersion coefficient of each dispersion phase data are different.

4. The dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography of claim 3, wherein:

in the dispersion phase data set, the values of the second-order dispersion coefficients are uniformly distributed in a first threshold range set in the magnitude of the dispersion phase data set, and the values of the third-order dispersion coefficients are uniformly distributed in a second threshold range set in the magnitude of the dispersion phase data set.

5. The dispersion compensation method based on fourier-domain optical coherence tomography according to claim 1, wherein the obtaining a depth space data set by IFFT after multiplying the preprocessed interference signal with the dispersion phase data set comprises:

and taking each dispersion phase data in the dispersion phase data group as a phase item to be respectively multiplied with the preprocessed interference signal and carrying out IFFT to obtain each depth space data respectively corresponding to each dispersion phase data, wherein the depth space data group is formed by all the obtained depth space data together.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining dispersion-compensated phase data by a peak-finding operation on the set of depth space data comprises:

for each depth space data of the set of depth space data: obtaining the intensity value of each peak in the depth space data and the depth position of each peak through peak searching operation; for each peak: obtaining a rate of change of the intensity value of the peak with respect to the intensity value of a depth position previous to the depth position of the peak; recording the intensity value of the peak with the intensity value change rate larger than a first set threshold value; taking the sum of all the recorded intensity values as the total peak intensity of the depth space data;

and selecting depth space data with the maximum total peak intensity of all depth space data in the depth space data group, and using the dispersion phase data used for obtaining the depth space data as the dispersion compensation phase data.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the steps in the Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography-based dispersion compensation method of any one of claims 1 to 6.

8. An electronic device, comprising:

at least one processor; and the number of the first and second groups,

a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor; wherein the content of the first and second substances,

the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to cause the at least one processor to perform the steps in the fourier-domain optical coherence tomography-based dispersion compensation method of any one of claims 1 to 6.

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of optical signal processing, in particular to a dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography.

Background

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) was first proposed by David Huang and published in nature journal in late 1991 in the last century, is a biomedical imaging technique with the characteristics of non-invasive, high resolution, real-time imaging, and the like. Since the technology is proposed up to now for thirty years, OCT has been successfully applied to medical fields such as oncology, dentistry, cardiology, dermatology and the like, and most successfully applied to ophthalmology, because the transmittance of crystalline lens to light is high, OCT can perform high-resolution imaging on the fundus oculi, which is helpful for doctors to perform nondestructive detection on pathological changes of the fundus oculi and propose a treatment scheme, and the OCT technology has become the "gold standard" for ophthalmologic diagnosis.

The OCT technology is divided into time domain OCT (TD-OCT) and Fourier domain OCT (FD-OCT), the Fourier domain OCT has the advantages of high imaging speed, high sensitivity, low signal to noise ratio and the like compared with the time domain, and the OCT provides possibility for real-time in-vivo imaging of a biological sample. The fourier domain OCT can be divided into spectral domain OCT (SD-OCT) and swept frequency OCT (SS-OCT) according to the system composition, and the difference between the two methods is that the spectroscopic method is different, the SD-OCT performs spatial spectroscopy using a broadband light source and a grating, and the SS-OCT performs temporal spectroscopy using a swept frequency light source whose wavelength changes with time. The SD-OCT and SS-OCT systems have different structures and have no difference in various imaging performance indexes.

The detection principle of OCT is interference of partial coherent light, the axial resolution of the system is an important index for evaluating the performance of the system, and compared with single-wavelength laser, the coherence length of a broadband light source is greatly reduced, so that OCT has micron-sized high resolution in the axial direction. The use of a broadband light source, however, introduces a severe dispersion mismatch into the system, causing the Point Spread Function (PSF) of the system to be broadened, thereby reducing axial resolution. Specifically, there are three factors that contribute to dispersion mismatch:

firstly, for flexibility of the system, the OCT system mostly adopts an optical fiber structure, and dispersion mismatch is introduced into the system by propagation of broadband light in the optical fiber; secondly, in order to eliminate chromatic aberration in the sample arm, a lens group formed by combining a plurality of lenses is often adopted as a focusing lens, and the broadband light can bring large dispersion mismatch to the system through the lens group; finally, since the system detects backscattered signals inside the sample, the propagation of light in the sample also introduces chromatic dispersion into the system.

The existence of chromatic dispersion degrades the resolution of the system, so chromatic dispersion compensation technology has been the research hotspot of OCT. Methods of dispersion compensation are divided into physical (hardware) compensation and numerical (software) compensation.

The physical compensation mainly aims at the achromatic focusing lens group in the sample arm, when the lens group is purchased, a matched dispersion compensator can be purchased together, the material and the thickness of the compensator are selected and designed, and are matched with the second-order dispersion coefficient and the third-order dispersion coefficient of the lens group, so that the dispersion mismatch of the sample arm and the reference arm is eliminated. The method does not need extra calculation, is convenient and quick, but only considers the chromatic dispersion of the lens, and does not take the chromatic dispersion brought by the optical fiber and the sample into account. In addition, system cost and complexity are also increased.

The numerical compensation means that after the interference signal detected by the system is obtained, the signal is subjected to data processing, and the second-order dispersion coefficient and the third-order dispersion coefficient of the system are solved by utilizing an algorithm. The common methods include an iterative compensation method, a deconvolution method, a full depth compensation method and the like, which have advantages in performance, but have larger calculation amount and reduce the imaging speed of the system.

In summary, the dispersion mismatch can reduce the resolution of the system, and how to accurately and quickly perform dispersion compensation on the OCT system is always a research focus of OCT.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above, the present invention provides a dispersion compensation method based on fourier-domain optical coherence tomography to achieve accurate and fast dispersion compensation, and ensure high resolution imaging of the FD-OCT system while ensuring real-time data processing and satisfying real-time imaging requirements.

The technical scheme of the invention is realized as follows:

a dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography comprises the following steps:

acquiring an interference signal of an A-scan of a Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) system for imaging a sample;

preprocessing the interference signal to obtain a preprocessed interference signal, wherein the preprocessed interference signal only contains a sample light reference light coherent signal;

providing a dispersion phase data set containing only second-order dispersion coefficient terms and third-order dispersion coefficient terms;

multiplying the preprocessed interference signal by the dispersion phase data set, and then performing fast inverse Fourier transform (IFFT) to obtain a depth space data set;

obtaining dispersion compensation phase data through peak searching operation of the depth space data group;

and multiplying the dispersion compensation phase data by the preprocessed interference signal, and then performing IFFT to obtain depth image data after dispersion compensation.

Further, the preprocessing the interference signal includes:

and removing the reference light self-coherent signal and the sample light self-coherent signal in the interference signal.

Further, the set of dispersive phase data comprises a plurality of dispersive phase data;

and the second-order dispersion coefficient and/or the third-order dispersion coefficient of each dispersion phase data are different.

Further, in the chromatic dispersion phase data set, values of the second-order dispersion coefficients are uniformly distributed in a first threshold range set in the magnitude range to which the second-order dispersion coefficients belong, and values of the third-order dispersion coefficients are uniformly distributed in a second threshold range set in the magnitude range to which the third-order dispersion coefficients belong.

Further, the obtaining a depth space data set by performing IFFT after multiplying the preprocessed interference signal by the dispersion phase data set includes:

and taking each dispersion phase data in the dispersion phase data group as a phase item to be respectively multiplied with the preprocessed interference signal and carrying out IFFT to obtain each depth space data respectively corresponding to each dispersion phase data, wherein the depth space data group is formed by all the obtained depth space data together.

Further, the obtaining dispersion compensated phase data by peak finding operation on the depth space data set includes:

for each depth space data of the set of depth space data: obtaining the intensity value of each peak in the depth space data and the depth position of each peak through peak searching operation; for each peak: obtaining a rate of change of the intensity value of the peak with respect to the intensity value of a depth position previous to the depth position of the peak; recording the intensity value of the peak with the intensity value change rate larger than a first set threshold value; taking the sum of all the recorded intensity values as the total peak intensity of the depth space data;

and selecting depth space data with the maximum total peak intensity of all depth space data in the depth space data group, and using the dispersion phase data used for obtaining the depth space data as the dispersion compensation phase data.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the steps in the fourier-domain optical coherence tomography-based dispersion compensation method as recited in any of the above.

An electronic device, comprising:

at least one processor; and the number of the first and second groups,

a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor; wherein the content of the first and second substances,

the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to cause the at least one processor to perform the steps of the fourier-domain optical coherence tomography-based dispersion compensation method as in any one of the above.

According to the scheme, the dispersion compensation method based on the Fourier domain optical coherence tomography does not need to introduce extra hardware equipment, can be based on the existing FD-COT system, and saves the system cost; meanwhile, only a plurality of times of fast inverse Fourier transform are needed in the process of dispersion compensation, the algorithm has small complexity, the data processing process is simple, the consumed time is short, and the real-time compensation can be realized; in addition, in actual operation, only one process of determining the dispersion coefficient is needed for the same sample, so that the obtained dispersion coefficient can be used for carrying out accurate dispersion compensation on the same sample, in other words, the dispersion coefficient obtained after carrying out dispersion compensation on the A-scan of the sample can be directly used for B-scan (transverse scanning). The dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography can quickly perform dispersion compensation on an FD-OCT system, and improves the axial resolution of the FD-OCT system.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic flow chart of a dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the optical path structure of an FD-OCT system used in an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic flow chart of an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a depth image before dispersion compensation;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a depth image after dispersion compensation according to an embodiment of the invention;

fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples.

As shown in fig. 1, the dispersion compensation method based on fourier-domain optical coherence tomography according to the embodiment of the present invention mainly includes the following steps:

step 1, acquiring an interference signal of an A-scan of an FD-OCT system for imaging a sample;

step 2, preprocessing the interference signal to obtain a preprocessed interference signal, wherein the preprocessed interference signal only contains a sample light reference light coherent signal;

step 3, providing a dispersion phase data group only containing a second-order dispersion coefficient item and a third-order dispersion coefficient item;

step 4, multiplying the preprocessed interference signal by the dispersion phase data set, and then performing IFFT (fast inverse Fourier transform) to obtain a depth space data set;

step 5, obtaining dispersion compensation phase data through peak searching operation of the depth space data set;

and 6, multiplying the dispersion compensation phase data by the preprocessed interference signal, and then performing IFFT to obtain depth image data after dispersion compensation.

Wherein, the A-scan is axial scan.

In an alternative embodiment, the interference signal is in wavenumber space. However, if the interference signal directly acquired from the FD-OCT system is an interference signal in the wavelength space, it is necessary to convert the interference signal in the wavelength space into an interference signal in the wave number space.

In an alternative embodiment, the preprocessing the interference signal of step 2 includes:

and removing the reference light self-coherent signal and the sample light self-coherent signal in the interference signal.

Based on this, the preprocessed interference signal obtained in step 2 is actually the interference signal of only the sample light reference light coherent signal after the reference light self-coherent signal and the sample light self-coherent signal in the interference signal are removed.

Wherein, in an alternative embodiment, the interference signal of the wavelength space is denoted as I₀And (lambda), the coherent signal of the reference light of the preprocessed sample light is denoted as I (lambda), and I (lambda) is converted from the wavelength space to the wavenumber space and is denoted as I (k). In actual practice, the interference signal of the a-scan directly obtained from the FD-OCT system is an interference signal of a wavelength space. Removing the reference light self-coherent signal and the sample light self-coherent signal in the interference signal in a wavelength space to obtain an interference signal only containing the sample light reference light coherent signal in the wavelength space, and converting the interference signal into a wavenumber space, namely the interference signal only containing the sample light reference light coherent signal in the wavenumber space, namely the interference signal in the wavenumber space after preprocessing; wherein λ is the wavelength of the interference signal, and k is the wave number of the interference signal, the formula can be based on the relation between wave number and wavelength

k＝2π/λ

When the conversion from the wavelength space to the wavenumber space is specifically performed, the interference signal from which the reference light self-coherent signal and the sample light self-coherent signal are removed may be interpolated equidistantly into the wavenumber space by using an equidistant interpolation method to obtain a preprocessed interference signal in the wavenumber space. The conversion of the interference signal from wavelength space to wavenumber space can be accomplished using mathematical software such as MATLAB.

In an alternative embodiment, the set of dispersive phase data includes a plurality of dispersive phase data; each dispersion phase data only contains a second-order dispersion coefficient term and a third-order dispersion coefficient term, and the second-order dispersion coefficient and/or the third-order dispersion coefficient among the dispersion phase data are different.

In an alternative embodiment, in the chromatic dispersion phase data set, values of the second-order dispersion coefficients are uniformly distributed in a first threshold range set within the order of magnitude to which the second-order dispersion coefficients belong, and values of the third-order dispersion coefficients are uniformly distributed in a second threshold range set within the order of magnitude to which the third-order dispersion coefficients belong.

In the embodiment of the invention, the dispersion phase is expressed as

Wherein, omega is the time angular frequency of the light wave,the time angular frequency corresponding to the center wavelength. a is₂Is a second order dispersion coefficient₃As a function of the third-order dispersion coefficient,

ω＝2kv

where k is the wave number and v is the speed of light.

The second order dispersion coefficient a is known from the prior art₂Of the order of 10^-27Third order dispersion coefficient a₃Of the order of 10^-43. In alternative embodiments, in this order of magnitudeSelecting an appropriate range a within the range₂∈[b,c]，a₃∈[d,e]Selecting a plurality of values of second-order dispersion coefficient and a plurality of values of third-order dispersion coefficient at equal intervals in the range, wherein [ b, c]About the second-order dispersion coefficient a₂At 10^-27First threshold range in order of magnitude, [ d, e ]]About the third-order dispersion coefficient a₃At 10^-43A second threshold range in the order of magnitude. Wherein, the values of b, c, d and e can be [0,9 ]]The integer in (b) is 4, c is 6, d is 2, and e is 3. The number of values of the second-order dispersion coefficients and the third-order dispersion coefficients can be any number, the more the value number is, the more accurate the obtained dispersion compensation phase data is, and the more the value number is, the longer the time consumed by calculation of the calculation equipment is, so that the imaging real-time performance is reduced or even lost. Therefore, the number of values of the plurality of second-order dispersion coefficients and the plurality of third-order dispersion coefficients needs to be considered as accurate as possible for both the image data and the imaging real-time performance, and therefore, in a preferred embodiment, the number of values of the second-order dispersion coefficients is 100, and the number of values of the third-order dispersion coefficients is 100. 100 second-order dispersion coefficients are 10^-27In the order of [4,6 ]]Medium interval selection (values of each second-order dispersion coefficient are uniformly distributed in the order of magnitude 10 to which the second-order dispersion coefficient belongs^-27Within a first threshold range [4,6 ] set]Medium), 100 third-order dispersion coefficients of 10^-43In the order of [2,3 ]]Medium interval selection (values of each third-order dispersion coefficient are uniformly distributed in the order of magnitude 10 to which the value belongs^-43Within a second threshold range [2,3 ]]In (1).

10000 dispersion phase data can be obtained by using the selected values of 100 second-order dispersion coefficients, 100 third-order dispersion coefficients and the dispersion phase formula, wherein in the 10000 dispersion phase data, the second-order dispersion coefficient a among the dispersion phase data₂And/or third-order Abbe number a₃The difference is different, and thus there is no exactly identical dispersion phase data between the 10000 dispersion phase data. A dispersion phase data group is composed of these 10000 pieces of dispersion phase data.

In an alternative embodiment, the step 4 of multiplying the preprocessed interference signal by the dispersion phase data set and then performing IFFT to obtain the depth space data set specifically includes:

and taking each dispersion phase data in the dispersion phase data group as a phase item, respectively multiplying each dispersion phase data with the preprocessed interference signal, and performing IFFT to obtain each depth space data corresponding to each dispersion phase data, wherein all the obtained depth space data jointly form a depth space data group.

In an alternative embodiment, the obtaining the dispersion compensation phase data through the peak finding operation on the depth space data set in step 5 specifically includes:

for each depth space data of the depth space data set: obtaining the intensity value of each peak in the depth space data and the depth position of each peak through peak searching operation; for each peak: obtaining a rate of change of the intensity value of the peak with respect to the intensity value of a depth position previous to the depth position of the peak; recording the intensity value of the peak with the intensity value change rate larger than a first set threshold value; taking the sum of all the recorded intensity values as the total peak intensity of the depth space data;

and selecting depth space data with the maximum total peak intensity of all depth space data in the depth space data group, and using the dispersion phase data used for obtaining the depth space data as dispersion compensation phase data.

Wherein, the maximum total peak intensity represents that a plurality of depth positions are imaged clearly, and is the optimal result considering the full depth dispersion compensation.

Wherein, the depth space data is recorded as i (z), and in combination with the above optional embodiment, since the dispersion phase data set includes 10000 dispersion phase data, through step 4, the preprocessed interference signal i (k) data is used to multiply each dispersion phase data in the dispersion phase data set and perform IFFT, 10000 depth space data i (z) respectively corresponding to 10000 dispersion phase data can be obtained, and the 10000 depth space data i (z) form a depth space data set. The 10000 dispersion phase data correspond to two dispersion phase data respectivelyCoefficient of order dispersion a₂And third-order dispersion coefficient a₃Then the 10000 depth space data I (z) respectively correspond to 10000 second-order dispersion coefficients a₂And third-order dispersion coefficient a₃The value of (a). Wherein z is the depth of the sample.

In step 5, peak searching is performed on the 10000 depth space data i (z) respectively to obtain all sharp signal peaks in each depth space data i (z), the peaks are screened, and an intensity value at a depth position where a change rate Q of the intensity value (representing the sharpness of the peak) is greater than a first set threshold is selected as an intensity peak to be recorded, wherein the intensity peak is recorded

Q＝[a_(i)-a_(i-1)]/a_(i)

Wherein, a_(i)Signal intensity values representing the ith position (corresponding to the depth z of the sample) in the depth space data i (z). The above formula represents the degree of the intensity value variation difference of the ith position from the adjacent previous position i-1 with respect to the intensity value of the ith position. Wherein, regarding the peak searching operation a_(i)The selection of the specific location and the interval between adjacent locations can be set as desired. In particular practice, peak finding operations can be implemented using the "findpeaks" function in MATLAB.

In an alternative embodiment, the first set threshold may be set as required, for example, the first set threshold may be set to 0.4, the peak value satisfying the Q value greater than 0.4 is recorded as the intensity value of the high quality signal peak, and the sum of the recorded intensity values of all the high quality signal peaks is recorded as H.

In step 5, peak searching is performed on the 10000 depth space data i (z) to obtain 10000 hs, the dispersion phase data used in the depth space data i (z) corresponding to the largest H of the 10000 hs is used as dispersion compensation phase data, and the second-order dispersion coefficient a in the dispersion compensation phase data₂Value of (a) and third-order dispersion coefficient a₃The values of (a) are taken as a value for compensating the second-order dispersion coefficient and a value for compensating the third-order dispersion coefficient, respectively.

The following further describes the dispersion compensation method based on fourier-domain optical coherence tomography according to an embodiment of the present invention with reference to a specific embodiment.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an optical path structure of the FD-OCT system used in this embodiment. Wherein, the light emitted by the SLD light source 1 is transmitted to the optical fiber collimator 3 through the optical fiber circulator 2. The fiber collimator 3 converts the fiber light into spatially collimated light to be incident on the beam splitter 4, since the back scattering signal of the sample is much smaller than the reflection signal of the reference arm, the splitting ratio of the beam splitter 4 is selected to be 90:10 in order to increase the power of the sample arm, and the light is split into two beams of the sample arm and the reference arm after passing through the beam splitter 4. Light of the sample arm enters the focusing lens group 6 after passing through the scanning galvanometer 5, a sample 7 to be measured is placed at the lens focus position of the focusing lens group 6, and the lifting platform 8 is used for adjusting the height of the sample so as to find the focal length position of the light beam. The light of the reference arm is incident on the reference mirror 9 and reflected back to the beam splitter 4. The detection light of the sample arm and the reference arm returns to the optical fiber circulator 2 through the light path original path, and then enters the spectrometer 14 through the optical fiber circulator 2. The spectrometer 14 mainly includes a fiber collimator 10, a grating 11, a focusing lens 12, and a linear CCD 13. In this embodiment, the sample 7 to be measured is six layers of cover glass, wherein the thickness of a single layer of cover glass is 170 μm, and the six layers of cover glass are stacked together and placed at the lens focusing position of the focusing lens group 6 of the sample arm. The position of the reference mirror 9 is adjusted to make the zero optical path positions of the sample arm and the reference arm above the surface of the sample 7 to be measured, and the interference signal acquired by the spectrometer 14 is subjected to data processing via MATLAB to obtain depth image data after dispersion compensation, and the method mainly includes the following steps with specific reference to the flowchart shown in fig. 3.

Step a, receiving a wavelength space interference signal I of A-scan of an FD-OCT system for imaging a sample to be detected₀(λ), after which step b is performed.

Step b, interfering the wavelength space with the signal I₀And (lambda) removing the reference light self-coherent signal and the sample light self-coherent signal, converting the signals into a wavenumber space to obtain a preprocessed interference signal I (k), and then executing the step c.

Wherein, according to the relation formula of wave number and wavelength

k＝2π/λ

The conversion from the wavelength space to the wave number space is carried out on the interference signal, and the conversion can be realized by using an equal-spacing interpolation method by using MATLAB.

Wherein the function of the A-scan interference signal in wavenumber space is represented as:

wherein E is_Re^i2krFor the purpose of reference to the arm signal,as a sample arm signal, E_RFor reference light amplitude, k is the wavenumber, 2r is the reference arm optical path length, a (z) is the amplitude at sample depth z, z and z' are the sample depths, n is the sample refractive index, 2[ r + nz]Is the sample arm optical path length, S (k) is a function of the spectral density of the light source,to representTime-averaged. i is an imaginary unit and R denotes a reference arm.

In the formula (1), E_R ²For the reference light self-coherent signal, it needs to be removed for the system dc term. The function of the wave number space interference signal (a-scan interference signal) after the dc term is removed is expressed as:

in the formula (1) and the formula (2),is a self-coherent signal of sample light, due to a (z) < E_RTherefore, it isThe term can be ignored and thus removed as well.

The interference signal required in this embodiment is the coherent signal of the sample light reference light.

The function of the preprocessed interference signal obtained by removing the reference light self-coherent signal and the sample light self-coherent signal, retaining the sample light reference light coherent signal, and converting the wavelength space into the wavenumber space is expressed as:

at this time, the depth signal after the preprocessed interference signal is transformed into the space domain is shown in fig. 4, in which the peaks are distributed in a disordered manner, which represents that there is a large dispersion adaptation, resulting in a serious reduction of the axial resolution.

And c, providing a dispersion phase data set only containing a second-order dispersion coefficient term and a third-order dispersion coefficient term, and then executing the step d.

For the detailed description of the dispersion, the dispersion medium with path length z increases the phase by

Wherein the content of the first and second substances,in order to be a zero order dispersion,in order to be the first-order dispersion,for the purpose of the second-order dispersion,for third-order dispersion, zero-order dispersionIs constant phase, the first-order dispersion is group velocity, which represents the propagation velocity of wave packet, and the coherence length of FD-OCT system is changed to l_C,Disp＝l_c/n_g(l_cIs the coherence length of the light source, n_gGroup refractive index), group refractive index n_gIn OCT systems, the depth resolution is defined as the coherence length of the light source, i.e. the depth resolution is equal to the coherence length l of the light source_cSo the system coherence length l_C,DispShortening, depth resolution can be improved.

Second order dispersionIs the group velocity dispersion or the change in group velocity with frequency.

Third order dispersionAsymmetric distortion of the point spread function in OCT is described.

The second-order dispersion and the third-order dispersion can widen the space signal and reduce the axial resolution of the image obtained by the FD-OCT system, so that the second-order dispersion coefficient and the third-order dispersion coefficient need to be compensated in the embodiment of the invention.

In this embodiment, the formula of the chromatic dispersion phase data is

In the present embodiment, the group of dispersed phase data includes 10000 dispersed phase data; each dispersion phase data contains only second-order dispersion coefficient term and third-order dispersion coefficient term, as formula (5), and the second-order dispersion coefficient a between the dispersion phase data₂And/or third-order Abbe number a₃Are different from each other.

In an alternative embodiment, the second order dispersion system is in the dispersed phase data setNumber a₂Is 100, each second-order dispersion coefficient a₂Are evenly distributed over the order of magnitude 10 to which they belong^-27Inner [4,6 ]]In the range of the third-order dispersion coefficient a₃Is 100, each third-order dispersion coefficient a₃Are evenly distributed over the order of magnitude 10 to which they belong^-43Inner [2,3 ]]Within the range.

And d, taking each dispersion phase data in the dispersion phase data group as a phase item, respectively multiplying each dispersion phase data with the preprocessed interference signal, performing IFFT to obtain each depth space data corresponding to each dispersion phase data, and then executing the step e.

Wherein, the dispersion phase data group comprises 10000 dispersion phase data, after the step d, 10000 depth space data i (z) are obtained, each depth space data i (z) is respectively corresponding to one dispersion phase data, that is, each depth space data i (z) is respectively corresponding to a group of second-order dispersion coefficients a₂Value of (a) and third-order dispersion coefficient a₃The value of (c).

And e, performing peak searching operation on each depth space data to obtain the total peak intensity H, and then performing step f.

Wherein, the peak searching operation in the step is realized by using a 'findpeaks' function in MATLAB.

Wherein the change rate of the intensity value of each peak is obtained by the following formula

Q＝[a_(i)-a_(i-1)]/a_(i)

Wherein Q is the rate of change of the intensity value, which reflects the sharpness of the peak, a_(i)Signal intensity values representing the ith position (corresponding to the depth z of the sample) in the depth space data i (z). The above formula represents the degree of the intensity value variation difference of the ith position from the adjacent previous position i-1 with respect to the intensity value of the ith position. In the present embodiment, a_(i)Representing the intensity value of the peak obtained by the peak finding operation, a_(i-1)Denotes a_(i)Intensity value at depth position before the depth position of the peak.

And screening out peak values with the Q value larger than 0.4 as intensity values of high-quality signal peaks for recording, and summing the intensity values of all the recorded high-quality signal peaks to obtain the total peak intensity H.

And f, selecting the depth space data with the maximum total peak intensity H from all the depth space data, and then executing the step g.

In this embodiment, 10000 depth space data i (z) are obtained, and 10000H are obtained after the peak searching operation, and the depth space data i (z) with the largest H is selected from the 10000H.

And g, taking the dispersion phase data corresponding to the depth space data with the maximum total peak intensity H as dispersion compensation phase data, multiplying the dispersion compensation phase data and the preprocessed interference signal, and performing IFFT to obtain the depth image data after dispersion compensation.

The explanation of the peak summation is as follows, because the OCT images the depth of the sample, each peak can be regarded as the signal intensity of each layer, if the signal intensity is larger, it indicates that the tissue in the depth is not affected by the dispersion and is imaged clearly, and the maximum value of the peak summation means that the maximum values are obtained in a plurality of depths, i.e. the multi-depth clear imaging. Therefore, in the embodiment of the invention, the second-order dispersion coefficient and the third-order dispersion coefficient when the total peak intensity H is maximum are screened out to be used as compensation, so that clear imaging can be obtained.

In this embodiment, the second-order dispersion coefficient and the third-order dispersion coefficient in the dispersion phase data corresponding to the depth space data with the maximum total peak intensity H are a₂＝4.71×10^-27、a₃＝2.10×10^-43. The dispersion phase data taking the result as the dispersion coefficient is multiplied by the preprocessed interference signal, namely the interference signal after dispersion compensation is represented as:

T(k)＝I(k)e^iφ(ω) (6)

in the formula (6), e^iφ(ω)A in (a)₂＝4.71×10^-27、a₃＝2.10×10^-43。

IFFT is performed on the interference signal t (k) after dispersion compensation obtained by formula (6), and depth image data after dispersion compensation can be obtained, as shown in fig. 5. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the signal peak obtained by measuring the dispersion-compensated depth image data was 8 μm.

In this embodiment, the central wavelength of the light source is λ₀840nm, bandwidth Δ λ 50nm, from depth resolution formula:

the theoretical value of axial resolution of the FD-OCT system is 6.2 μm.

It can be seen by comparison that the result (8 μm) after dispersion compensation is close to the theoretical value (6.2 μm), so that the dispersion compensation method of the embodiment is adopted to realize high-resolution imaging of the FD-COT system.

In the dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography of the embodiment of the invention, even if the peak searching operation is carried out in a traversing mode, the complex calculation in the process of executing the method only comprises fast inverse Fourier transform (IFFT), so that the real-time performance of the algorithm is not influenced on the whole.

Embodiments of the present invention also provide a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the steps of the fourier-domain optical coherence tomography-based dispersion compensation method as described above.

An embodiment of the present invention further provides an electronic device, as shown in fig. 6, where the electronic device includes: at least one processor 100 and a memory 200. The memory 200 is communicatively coupled to the at least one processor 100, for example, the memory 200 and the at least one processor 100 are coupled via a bus. The memory 200 stores instructions executable by the at least one processor 100 to cause the at least one processor 100 to perform the steps of the fourier-domain optical coherence tomography-based dispersion compensation method as described above.

By adopting the dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography of the embodiment of the invention, no additional hardware equipment is required to be introduced, and the method can be based on the existing FD-COT system, thereby saving the system cost; meanwhile, only a plurality of times of fast inverse Fourier transform are needed in the process of dispersion compensation, the algorithm has small complexity, the data processing process is simple, the consumed time is short, and the real-time compensation can be realized; in addition, in actual operation, only one process of determining the dispersion coefficient is needed for the same sample, so that the obtained dispersion coefficient can be used for carrying out accurate dispersion compensation on the same sample, in other words, the dispersion coefficient obtained after carrying out dispersion compensation on the A-scan of the sample can be directly used for B-scan (transverse scanning). The dispersion compensation method based on Fourier domain optical coherence tomography of the embodiment of the invention can quickly carry out dispersion compensation on the FD-OCT system, and improve the axial resolution of the FD-OCT system.

The above description is only for the purpose of illustrating the preferred embodiments of the present invention and is not to be construed as limiting the invention, and any modifications, equivalents, improvements and the like made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the scope of the present invention.