Semi-analytical full-wave model of OCT-scan formation for various degrees of OCT-beam focusing with implication of motion of scatterers

Numerical beam refocusing in OCT is used to increase lateral resolution in the out-of-focus areas for strongly focused beams. However, this approach is based on overlapping lateral scanning in the assumption of the same scatterers positions. In the presence of scatterer motions the numerical refocusing approach can fail. It limit the applicability of the numerical refocusing approach to such based on scatterer motion evaluation modalities as angiography and elastopgraphy. Due to hard controlling phantom experiments we evaluate the influence of motion of scatterers on numerical beam refocusing on the base of numerical simulated OCT scans. The motions of the scatterers are well controlled in the numerical model and its effect on the numerical refocusing approach can be quantified. For this study, a full-wave model for simulating images in spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) with rigorous accounting for the beam-focusing effects is used.