Structured three-dimensional optical phantom for optical coherence tomography.

We present a three-dimensional structured tissue-mimicking phantom for use in optical coherence tomography (OCT). The phantom was fabricated from a silicone matrix and titanium dioxide additive using a lithographic casting method capable of producing a wide range of well-defined geometries with optical contrast and mesoscopic feature sizes relevant to OCT. We describe the fabrication, characterization and OCT imaging of two phantoms and demonstrate their utility in assessing the performance of a spatial-diversity speckle reduction technique. Such phantoms will be important in the development of standards in OCT, as well as in enabling quantitative performance assessment.