We compare five optical coherence elastography techniques able to estimate the shear speed of waves generated by one and two sources of excitation. The first two techniques make use of one piezoelectric actuator in order to produce a continuous shear wave propagation or a tone-burst propagation (TBP) of 400 Hz over a gelatin tissue-mimicking phantom. The remaining techniques utilize a second actuator located on the opposite side of the region of interest in order to create three types of interference patterns: crawling waves, swept crawling waves, and standing waves, depending on the selection of the frequency difference between the two actuators. We evaluated accuracy, contrast to noise ratio, resolution, and acquisition time for each technique during experiments. Numerical simulations were also performed in order to support the experimental findings. Results suggest that in the presence of strong internal reflections, single source methods are more accurate and less variable when compared to the two-actuator methods. In particular, TBP reports the best performance with an accuracy error <4.1%. Finally, the TBP was tested in a fresh chicken tibialis anterior muscle with a localized thermally ablated lesion in order to evaluate its performance in biological tissue.
Various types of waves are produced when a harmonic force is applied to a semi-infinite half space elastic medium. In particular, surface waves are perturbations with transverse and longitudinal components of displacement that propagate in the boundary region at the surface of the elastic solid. Shear wave speed estimation is the standard for characterizing elastic properties of tissue in elastography; however, the penetration depth of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is typically measured in millimeters constraining the measurement region of interest to be near the surface. Plane harmonic Rayleigh waves propagate in solid-vacuum interfaces while Scholte waves exist in solid-fluid interfaces. Theoretically, for an elastic solid with a Poisson’s ratio close to 0.5, the ratio of the Rayleigh to shear wave speed is 95%, and 84% for the Scholte to shear wave. Our study demonstrates the evidence of Rayleigh waves propagating in the solid-air boundary of tissue-mimicking elastic phantoms. Sinusoidal tone-bursts of 400Hz and 1000 Hz were excited over the phantom by using a piezoelectric actuator. The wave propagation was detected with a phase-sensitive OCT system, and its speed was measured by tracking the most prominent peak of the tone in time and space. Similarly, this same experiment was repeated with a water interface. In order to obtain the shear wave speed in the material, mechanical compression tests were conducted in samples of the same phantom. A 93.9% Rayleigh-shear and 82.4% Scholte-Shear speed ratio were measured during experiments which are in agreement with theoretical results.
Optical Coherence Elastography (OCE) is a widely investigated noninvasive technique for estimating the mechanical properties of tissue. In particular, vibrational OCE methods aim to estimate the shear wave velocity generated by an external stimulus in order to calculate the elastic modulus of tissue. In this study, we compare the performance of five acquisition and processing techniques for estimating the shear wave speed in simulations and experiments using tissue-mimicking phantoms. Accuracy, contrast-to-noise ratio, and resolution are measured for all cases. The first two techniques make the use of one piezoelectric actuator for generating a continuous shear wave propagation (SWP) and a tone-burst propagation (TBP) of 400 Hz over the gelatin phantom. The other techniques make use of one additional actuator located on the opposite side of the region of interest in order to create an interference pattern. When both actuators have the same frequency, a standing wave (SW) pattern is generated. Otherwise, when there is a frequency difference df between both actuators, a crawling wave (CrW) pattern is generated and propagates with less speed than a shear wave, which makes it suitable for being detected by the 2D cross-sectional OCE imaging. If df is not small compared to the operational frequency, the CrW travels faster and a sampled version of it (SCrW) is acquired by the system. Preliminary results suggest that TBP (error < 4.1%) and SWP (error < 6%) techniques are more accurate when compared to mechanical measurement test results.
Thickness estimation, which has a broad range of applications, plays an important role in the field of optical metrology. In this study, we investigate a new approach—combining optical coherence tomography (OCT) and statistical decision theory—for thickness estimation. We first discussed and quantified the intensity noise of three commonly used broadband sources, a super-continuum source, a super-luminescent diode (SLD), and a swept source. Furthermore, a maximum-likelihood (ML) estimator was implemented to interpret the OCT raw data. Based on the mathematical model and the ML estimator, simulations were set up to investigate the impact of different broadband sources in OCT for a thickness estimation task. We then validated the theoretical framework with physical phantoms. Results demonstrate unbiased nanometer-class thickness estimates with the ML estimator. The framework can be potentially used for film and surface shape metrology.
The recent advances in the optics manufacturing industry to achieve the capability of fabricating rotationally nonsymmetric optical quality surfaces have considerably stimulated the optical designs with freeform components. This opens up new horizons for novel optical systems with larger fields of view and higher performance, or significantly more compact in volume at equal performance compared to conventional systems. A bottleneck to the broad industrial applications of freeform optics remains the lack of a high performance optical metrology tool capable of measuring significant surface departures and slopes of the parts. To address this issue, we have developed a fiber-based swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) system for point-cloud freeform metrology, where two-axis galvanometer scanners are leveraged for high-speed lateral scans. We specifically designed a custom all-reflective achromatic pupil relay system to achieve a diffraction-limited scanning configuration. Coupled with a large field-of-view (FOV) telecentric scan lens, the imaging covers 28.9 mm × 28.9 mm FOV with 35 μm lateral resolution and more than 600 μm depth of focus. Freeform metrology is demonstrated for an Alvarez surface of 400 μm surface sag. The high sensitivity of the SS-OCT system allows for capturing the slope variations of the part up to the maximum slope that is 5 degrees in this case. Specific surface reconstruction, rendering and fitting algorithms were developed to evaluate the metrology results and investigate the accuracy and precision of the measurements.
Thickness estimation is a common task in optical coherence tomography (OCT). This study discusses and quantifies the intensity noise of three commonly used broadband sources, such as a supercontinuum source, a superluminescent diode (SLD), and a swept source. The performance of the three optical sources was evaluated for a thickness estimation task using both the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and maximum-likelihood (ML) estimators. We find that the source intensity noise has less impact on a thickness estimation task compared to the width of the axial point-spread function (PSF) and the trigger jittering noise of a swept source. Findings further show that the FFT estimator yields biased estimates, which can be as large as 10% of the thickness under test in the worst case. The ML estimator is by construction asymptotically unbiased and displays a 10× improvement in precision for both the supercontinuum and SLD sources. The ML estimator also shows the ability to estimate thickness that is at least 10× thinner compared to the FFT estimator. Finally, findings show that a supercontinuum source combined with the ML estimator enables unbiased nanometer-class thickness estimation with nanometer-scale precision.
We report a study on design consideration and performance analysis of OCT-based topography by tracking of maximum
intensity at each layer’s interface. We demonstrate that, for a given stabilized OCT system, a high precision and accuracy
of OCT-based layers and thickness topography in the order of tens nanometer can be achieved by using a technique of
maximum amplitude tracking. The submicron precision was obtained by over sampling through the FFT of the acquired
spectral fringes but was eventually limited by the system stability. Furthermore, we report characterization of a precision,
repeatability, and accuracy of the surfaces, sub-surfaces, and thickness topography using our optimized FD-OCT system.
We verified that for a given stability of our OCT system, precision of the detected position of signal’s peak of down to 20
nm was obtained. In addition, we quantified the degradation of the precision caused by sensitivity fall-off over depth of
FD-OCT. The measured precision is about 20 nm at about 0.1 mm depth, and degrades to about 80 nm at 1 mm depth, a
position of about 10 dB sensitivity fall-off. The measured repeatability of thickness measurements over depth was
approximately 0.04 micron. Finally, the accuracy of the system was verified by comparing with a digital micrometer
gauging.
In recent years, there has been an ever-growing interest in exploring different optical materials and components to develop compact and effective optical systems. The design and fabrication of high-performance optics require nondestructive metrology techniques to inspect the samples. We have investigated the capability of optical coherence tomography (OCT) to nondestructively characterize layered polymeric materials. Using a custom developed Gabor-domain optical coherence microscopy system centered at 800 nm with 120 nm full width at half maximum enabling unprecedented 2 μm resolution both laterally and axially in an 8 mm 3 volume, we investigated the internal structure of 50 μm thick films and layered sheets, which prompted the manufacturing process to adopt a compatibilization technique. Based on a custom swept-source OCT system centered at 1320 nm with expanded imaging field-of-view and latest depth of imaging extended to ∼5 mm , we performed nondestructive metrology of the layer thickness profiles over the depth of a monolithic layered sheet and diagnosed a film compression issue within the sheet. With the OCT metrology, the manufacturing process has been advanced and the layer thickness profile of a recent layered gradient refractive index sheet shows improved uniformity through depth.
In recent years, there has been an ever-growing interest in exploring novel, highly efficient optical materials to develop
compact and effective optical components. The design and fabrication of high-performance optics require nondestructive
metrology techniques to inspect the samples. We have investigated the capability of optical coherence tomography
(OCT) to nondestructively characterize layered polymeric materials. Using a swept-source OCT system with a
wavelength range of 1.25 - 1.41 μm, we achieved micron-scale three-dimensional visualization of the interior structures
and details of the layered polymers. The 3D OCT imaging also enabled accurate identification of the locations of defects
within the samples. Based on the imaging data, nondestructive metrology of the thickness of each observed layer was
accomplished and the obtained layer thickness profiles over depth offered valuable feedback to the manufacturing
process. Our results correlated well with light microscope observance, however caused no surface damage in
comparison. In this paper we present the technique of nondestructive metrology enabled by OCT and discuss the
experimental results on typical layered polymeric samples.
KEYWORDS: Magnetic resonance imaging, Bone, Reconstruction algorithms, Visualization, Image segmentation, Natural surfaces, Scanners, Cartilage, 3D metrology, In vivo imaging
A new three-dimensional (3D) method of evaluating the joint space from fast GRE MRI has been developed that allows the reconstruction of the two dimensional (2D) distance map between the femur and the tibia bone plates. This method uses the MRI data, an automated 3D segmentation, and an unsupervised joint space extraction algorithm that identify the medial and lateral compartments of the knee joint. The extracted medial and lateral compartments of the tibia-femur joint space were analyzed by 2D distance maps, where visual as well quantitative information was extracted. This method was applied to study the dynamic behavior of the knee joint space under axial load. Three healthy volunteers' knees were imaged using fast GRE sequences in a clinical scanner under unloaded (normal) conditions and with an axial load that mimics the person's standing load. Furthermore, one volunteer's knee was imaged at four regular time intervals while the load was applied and at four regular intervals without load. The results show that changes of 50 microns in the average distance between bones can be measured and that normal axial loads reduce the joint space width significantly and can be detected by this method.
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