Signal processing for sidelobe suppression in optical coherence tomography images.

In an optical coherence tomography system, the sidelobes of the point-spread function (PSF) introduced from the optical source reduce the A-scan imaging resolution and contrast of the images. A gradual iterative signal subtraction method based on the study of a point signal influenced by other points with different distances through the PSF is proposed in this paper. Comparing with the CLEAN algorithm and two typical deconvolution methods, the processed results demonstrate this algorithm can reduce sidelobes effectively with the least runtime. It is also found that it is insensitive to noise while slightly improving the longitudinal resolution, which shows this algorithm is good for improving image quality.