Alignment analyses of a galvanometer-based scanner in free-space Fourier domain optical coherence tomography.

Free-space Fourier domain optical coherence tomography is adopted for biomedical imaging with ultrahigh resolution, in which the setup consists of an interferometer and a spectrometer. Two-dimensional lateral sampling in the sample arm of the interferometer is achieved by using a galvanometer-based scanner. Optical path difference (OPD) drift in the full scan field of view is observed in the assembly process of the scanner. A galvo mirror mount offset with respect to the rotation axis is demonstrated as the derivation of this OPD drift by both geometric analyses and model building. Then, an iterative assembly process of the scanner is proposed with the OPD drift taken as the alignment criteria.