In-plane and out-of-plane tissue micro-displacement measurement by correlation coefficients of optical coherence tomography.

We propose a method to measure the in-plane and out-of-plane displacements of tissue using the correlation coefficients of optical coherence tomography (OCT) signals. The displacements are determined by the local correlation coefficients between digitally shifted reference OCT images and a target image. The method achieves sub-micron displacement measurement with an accuracy better than 0.32 μm and repeatability better than 0.36 μm. The feasibility of the method was examined by measuring the displacement field of a laser irradiated porcine retina. This method successfully visualized the dynamic change of the displacement field during laser irradiation.