title: Methods to assess sensitivity of optical coherence tomography systems.
abstract: Measuring the sensitivity of an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system determines the minimum sample reflectivity it can detect and provides a figure of merit for system optimization and comparison. The published literature lacks a detailed description of OCT sensitivity measurement procedures. Here we describe a commonly-used measurement method and introduce two new phantom-based methods, which also offer a means to directly visualize low reflectivity conditions relevant to biological tissue. We provide quantitative results for the three methods from different OCT system configurations and discuss the methods' advantages and disadvantages.
authors.affiliation: Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Anant
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Agrawal
authors.affiliation: Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD, USA.
authors.forename: T Joshua
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Pfefer
authors.affiliation: Functional Materials Group, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, UK.
authors.forename: Peter D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Woolliams
authors.affiliation: Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, E1 1BB, London, UK.
authors.forename: Peter H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Tomlins
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nehmetallah
keywords: (110.3000) Image quality assessment; (170.4500) Optical coherence tomography; (350.4800) Optical standards and testing