Phase-drift suppression in heterodyne detection and its application to optical coherent tomography

Summary form only given. Interferometric measurement techniques have a wide range of applications from measuring distances to optical tomographies. Recently, optical coherent tomography (OCT) for biological tissues has attracted special interest. OCT systems utilize low-coherence interferometry with heterodyne detection Heterodyne beat signals change, due to phase drifts between the signal and reference waves, through fluctuations of wavelength, phase, and optical length. In this study, we devised a phase-drift suppression method (PDSM) that can suppress the influences of this phase drift to enhance the stability of the heterodyne beat signal and demonstrated its applications.