Intensity levels allowed by safety standards (ICNIRP or ANSI) limit the amount of light that can be used in a clinical setting to image highly scattering or absorptive tissues with optical coherence tomography (OCT). To achieve high-sensitivity imaging at low intensity levels, we adapt a detection scheme—which is used in quantum optics for providing information about spectral correlations of photons—into a standard spectral domain OCT system. This detection scheme is based on the concept of dispersive Fourier transformation, where a fiber introduces a wavelength-dependent time delay measured by a single-pixel detector, usually a high-speed photoreceiver. Here, we use a fast superconducting single-photon detector SSPD as a single-pixel detector and obtain images of a glass stack and a slice of onion at the intensity levels of the order of 10 pW. We also provide a formula for a depth-dependent sensitivity falloff in such a detection scheme, which can be treated as a temporal equivalent of diffraction-grating-based spectrometers.

中文翻译：

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用于光谱域光学相干断层扫描的量子启发检测。

安全标准（ICNIRP或ANSI）允许的强度级别限制了可在临床环境中使用光学相干断层扫描（OCT）对高度散射或吸收性组织成像的光量。为了实现低强度水平的高灵敏度成像，我们将检测方案（在量子光学中用于提供有关光子的光谱相关信息的信息）改编为标准光谱域OCT系统。此检测方案基于色散傅里叶变换的概念，其中光纤引入了由单像素检测器（通常是高速光接收器）测量的与波长相关的时延。在这里，我们使用快速超导单光子检测器SSPD作为单像素检测器，并以10 pW的强度水平获得玻璃堆和洋葱切片的图像。