Artifact removal in complex frequency domain optical coherence tomography with an iterative least-squares phase-shifting algorithm.

We present what we believe to be a new computational algorithm for complex frequency domain optical coherence tomography that can effectively suppress artifacts that are caused by uncertainty in phase shift due to sample motion and errors in reference phases. The algorithm treats the phase-shifting values as additional unknowns, and we can determine their exact values by analyzing interference fringes using the numerical least-squares technique. A series of simulations and experiments prove that this algorithm can effectively remove strong mirror-image artifacts because it is unaffected by random phase fluctuation.