"Coherence radar," an optical 3-D sensor based on short coherence interferometry, is used to measure skin surface topology. This method is called optical coherence profilometry (OCP) and it may be a useful tool for medical diagnosis in dermatology because different medical conditions show distinct alterations of the skin surface. The measuring uncertainty is less than 2 μm. The measuring time is about 4 s. in vivo 3-D mapping of naked skin was performed without preparation. For clinical application, a fiber optical implementation was introduced. Spectral radar is an optical sensor for the acquisition of skin morphology based on OCT techniques. The scattering amplitude a(z) along one vertical axis from the surface into the bulk can be measured within one exposure. No reference arm scanning is necessary. The theory of the sensor, including the dynamic range, is discussed and in vivo measurements of human skin by a fiber optical implementation of the sensor are demonstrated. © 1998 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

An optical method is introduced for observation of temporally and spatially resolved frames that show how light propagates in diffusely scattering materials. The method permits videos with 100-fs resolution in time to be produced. The method utilizes short-coherence interferometry. The source of information is the speckle contrast. The temporal and spatial evolution of the multiple scattering process is demonstrated for several biological and industrial samples. A major objective of the method is to investigate the conditions for optimum coherence and optimum apertures to achieve high resolution in the short-coherence interferometry. One important result is that during the propagation a sharp photon horizon evolves, which is useful for the morphological analysis of volume scatterers.

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The ,,Spectral Radar" is an optical sensor for tomography, working in the Fourier domain, rather than in time domain. The scattering amplitude a(z) along one vertical axis from the surface into the bulk can be measured within one exposure. No reference arm scanning is necessary. One important property of optical coherence tomography (OCT) sensors is the dynamic range. We will compare the dynamic range of the spectral radar with standard OCT. The influence of the Fourier transformation on the dynamic range of the Spectral Radar will be discussed. The dinical relevance of the in vivo measurements will be demonstrated.

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