Optical coherence imaging, including tomography (OCT) and microscopy (OCM), has been a growing research field in biomedical optical imaging in the last decade. In this imaging modality, a broadband light source, thus of short temporal coherence length, is used to perform imaging via interferometry. A challenge in optical coherence imaging, as in any imaging system towards biomedical diagnosis, is the quantification of image quality and optimization of the system components, both a primary focus of this research. We concentrated our efforts on the optimization of the imaging system from two main standpoints: axial point spread function (PSF) and practical steps towards compact low-cost solutions. Up to recently, the criteria for the quality of a system was based on speed of imaging, sensitivity, and particularly axial resolution estimated solely from the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the axial PSF with the common practice of assuming a Gaussian source power spectrum. As part of our work to quantify axial resolution we first brought forth two more metrics unlike FWHM, which accounted for side lobes in the axial PSF caused by irregularities in the shape of the source power spectrum, such as spectral dips. Subsequently, we presented a method where the axial PSF was significantly optimized by suppressing the side lobes occurring because of the irregular shape of the source power spectrum. The optimization was performed through optically shaping the source power spectrum via a programmable spectral shaper, which consequentially led to suppression of spurious structures in the images of a layered specimen. The superiority of the demonstrated approach was in performing reshaping before imaging, thus eliminating the need for post-data acquisition digital signal processing. Importantly, towards the optimization and objective image quality assessment in optical coherence imaging, the impact of source spectral shaping was further analyzed in a task-based assessment method based on statistical decision theory. Two classification tasks, a signal-detection task and a resolution task, were investigated. Results showed that reshaping the source power spectrum was a benefit essentially to the resolution task, as opposed to both the detection and resolution tasks, and the importance of the specimen local variations in index of refraction on the resolution task was demonstrated. Finally, towards the optimization of OCT and OCM for use in clinical settings, we analyzed the detection electronics stage, which is a crucial component of the system that is designed to capture extremely weak interferometric signals in biomedical and biological imaging applications. We designed and tested detection electronics to achieve a compact and low-cost solution for portable imaging units and demonstrated that the design provided an equivalent performance to the commercial lock-in amplifier considering the system sensitivity obtained with both detection schemes.

L'amélioration de la visualisation in vivo des lésions précancéreuse (dysplasies) du col utérin est essentielle pour mieux identifier les zones à biopsier et pour optimiser la définition des limites d'exérèse chirurgicale. Dans ce but nous étudions une nouvelle technique d'imagerie polarimétrique en rétrodiffusion, que nous avons mise en oeuvre sur des échantillons ex vivo dans des configurations expérimentales variées afin d'optimiser le diagnostic in vivo. Comme cette optimisation passe par la compréhension des contrastes polarimétriques observés, nous avons réalisé de nombreuses simulations de la propagation de lumière polarisée dans des structures multicouche représentatives des tissus. Ces structures comprennent typiquement une couche comportant des diffuseurs dans une matrice homogène et représentant l'épithélium ou le tissu conjonctif superficiel, et un substrat lambertien totalement dépolarisant pour les couches plus profondes. Ces simulations ont été effectuées au moyen d'un code Monte Carlo que nous avons adapté à notre problématique. Nous avons ainsi montré que la contribution des noyaux cellulaires est très faible en rétrodiffusion. Pour le tissu conjonctif, les fibres de collagène, modélisées par des diffuseurs sphériques de 200 nm de rayon, donnent une contribution plus importante que les noyaux, mais ne reproduisent pas la réponse polarimétrique de type Rayleigh observée dans tous les tissus étudiés, qu'ils soient sains ou pathologiques. En revanche, l'inclusion de diffuseurs de taille nettement inférieure à la longueur d'onde, modélisés par des sphères de 50 nm, permet de reproduire cette réponse de manière très stable. Ces diffuseurs correspondent a priori aux protéines intracellulaires. Dans le cadre de ce modèle, les contrastes observés entre tissus sains et cancéreux s'expliquent essentiellement par une variation de la concentration de ces petits diffuseurs. Ce résultat, encore préliminaire, suggère que l'imagerie polarimétrique en rétrodiffusion peut être sensible non seulement à la morphologie, mais également à l'état physiologique du tissu, ce qui peut s'avérer important pour la détection sélective des dysplasies.

The common way to diagnose hard and soft tissue irregularities in the oral cavity is initially the visual inspection by an experienced dentist followed by further medical examinations, such as radiological imaging and/or histopathological investigation. For the diagnosis of oral hard and soft tissues, the detection of early transformations is mostly hampered by poor visual access, low specificity of the diagnosis techniques, and/or limited feasibility of frequent screenings. Therefore, optical noninvasive diagnosis of oral tissue is promising to improve the accuracy of oral screening. Considering this demand, a rigid handheld endoscopic scanner was developed for optical coherence tomography (OCT). The novelty is the usage of a commercially near-infrared endoscope with fitting optics in combination with an established spectral-domain OCT system of our workgroup. By reaching a high spatial resolution, in vivo images of anterior and especially posterior dental and mucosal tissues were obtained from the oral cavity of two volunteers. The convincing image quality of the endoscopic OCT device is particularly obvious for the imaging of different regions of the human soft palate with highly scattering fibrous layer and capillary network within the lamina propria.