Applications of Doppler optical coherence tomography based on zero-crossing detection to flow monitoring inside a stenosis phantom

Most of the time, arterial stenoses caused by atherosclerosis, hardening of the artery walls, or buildup of fatty deposits prevent the blood from flowing normally. Blood flow characteristics in the vicinity of a stenosis are therefore very important since the restriction may accelerate fatty deposits and thus quickly clog the artery. Doppler Optical Coherence Tomography (DOCT) is a biomedical technique that allows simultaneous structural imaging and flow monitoring inside biological tissues and materials with spatial resolution at least one order of magnitude better than .ultrasound This study deals with the application of a Near Infrared DOCT system for imaging and monitoring of liquid flow inside a stenosis phantom inserted in a glass tube. For the measurement of the Doppler frequency, we use a numerical method based on the detection of the zero-crossing points of the OCT signal.