UC Riverside

Our lab aims to apply OCT to the study of the nervous system. In order to detect neural activity using this technology, we measure optical changes that occur in the neural tissue as a result of transient volume changes. Though these changes are critical to our studies, they are poorly understood and so, through analysis of the current literature on the subject, I narrowed down the possible mechanisms for this phenomenon. As such,

our system needs to be able to resolve on the order of microns. We can increase the resolution by increasing the numerical aperture, but this leads to a characteristic trade-off with the depth of field. In order to maximize our resolution and depth of field, I implemented phase sensitive synthetic aperture technology into our OCT system which allows for an increase in the intensity and phase across a DOF beyond the Rayleigh range through modification of the wavefront curvature.