In a large-scale EU project, the capabilities of optical coherence tomography (OCT) and Raman spectroscopy have been combined in a novel eye scanner. Using this, it is possible to add molecular information to the visualisation of the internal structure of the eye .
It is hoped that this will enable neurodegenerative diseases to be detected at an early stage, as well as eye diseases and diabetes.
The multimodal eye scanner not only provides a high-resolution image of the structure using OCT but also sensitive molecular characterisation of the tissue.
To achieve this, the capabilities of OCT have been combined with those of Raman spectroscopy.
The latter technology uses light in order to detect the finest molecular vibrations, so that the chorus of molecules in the tissue generates a characteristic spectrum, from which it is possible to determine the composition of the tissue.
