Optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging systems having adaptable lens systems and related methods and computer program products

1. A scanning Fourier Domain (FD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system for imaging structures posterior to a lens of an eye of a rodent subject, the system comprising:

a source having an associated source arm path;

a reference arm having an associated reference arm path coupled to the source arm path, the reference arm path having an associated reference arm path length;

a sample arm having an associated sample arm path coupled to the source arm path, the sample arm comprising:

an input optical fiber delivering optical radiation from the source;

at least one optical element following the input optical fiber;

at least one scanning mirror following the at least one optical element; and

imaging optics following the at least one scanning mirror, the imaging optics including a plurality of lens elements;

a reference arm path length adjustment module coupled to the reference arm,

wherein the imaging optics of the sample arm images a conjugate of the at least one scanning mirror to a region posterior to the cornea of the rodent subject and anterior to a retina of the rodent subject;

wherein the imaging optics of the sample arm focus the optical radiation from the input optical fiber to a substantially telecentric conjugate plane, wherein a final objective lens relays a conjugate of the optical radiation from the source to a region posterior to the imaging position of the at least one scanning mirror and substantially within a region of the retina; and

wherein the reference arm is adjusted to position an OCT image of the retina of the rodent subject within a Fourier domain imaging window.

2. The OCT system of claim 1 , wherein an amount of optical power used to obtain an OCT image of posterior structures of the eye is a function of a diameter of the eye.

3. The OCT system of claim 1 , wherein the telecentric conjugate plane has a field curvature radius of greater than about 100 mm.

4. The OCT system of claim 1 , wherein the final objective lens has a focal power sufficient to image the conjugate of the optical radiation from the input optical fiber from the substantially telecentric conjugate plane to the retina of the eye.

5. The OCT system of claim 4 , wherein power for a mouse eye having an eye diameter of about 3 mm is about +80 Diopters and wherein power for a rat eye having an eye diameter of about 6 mm is about +73 Diopters.

6. A method for imaging posterior structures of an eye using a scanning Fourier Domain optical coherence tomography (FDOCT) imaging system, the method comprising:

positioning a rodent subject before the sample arm optics of the scanning FDOCT imaging system;

adjusting a working distance between a distal most sample arm lens and a cornea of the rodent subject such that a conjugate of at least one scanning mirror is imaged within an eye of the rodent subject and posterior to the cornea, wherein a scanning beam pivots around a region interior to the eye of the rodent subject;

imaging an optical radiation from an input optical fiber to a conjugate plane internal to the sample arm optics; and

relaying an intermediate conjugate to a region posterior to a position of the conjugate of the at least one scanning minor and substantially within a region of the rodent subject retina, wherein the FDOCT imaging system uses an objective lens with a focal power selected in relation to a diameter of the rodent eye.

7. A computer program product for imaging posterior structures of an eye using a scanning Fourier Domain optical coherence tomography (FDOCT) system, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied in the medium, the computer readable program code comprising:

computer readable program code configured to image posterior structures of a rodent eye having a ball-lens ocular phenotype of a rodent subject using optics configured to image posterior to an ocular lens,

wherein the optics image a conjugate of at least one scanning mirror to a region internal to an eye of the rodent subject and posterior to a cornea; and

wherein the optics image optical radiation from an optical fiber input to a telecentric plane with a substantially flattened field curvature; and

computer readable program code configured to image the conjugate to a region posterior to the conjugate of the at least one scanning mirror and substantially within a region of the rodent subject using an objective lens with a focal power selected in inverse proportion to a diameter of the rodent eye.