Development of a corneal tissue phantom for anterior chamber optical coherence tomography (AC-OCT)

We document our latest work in developing a new eye model with a solid-state cornea and liquid filled anterior chamber designed for demonstrating, validating and comparing anterior chamber ophthalmic Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) instruments, corneal topographers, and Scheimpflug cameras. Anterior chamber eye model (ACEM) phantoms can serve a variety of purposes, including demonstrating instrument functionality and performance in both the clinic and exhibit hall, validating corneal layer thickness measurements from different commercial instruments and as an aide for the R and D engineer and field service technician in the development and repair of instruments, respectively. The ideal eye model for OCT, the optical cross-sectional imaging modality, would have a volumetric morphology and scattering and absorption properties similar to that of normal human cornea. These include a multi-layered structure of equivalent thickness to nominal human corneal layers, including an epithelium layer, a stroma with appropriate backscattering properties, and an endothelium. A filled and sealed tissue phantom relieves the user of constant cleaning and maintenance associated with the more common water bath model eyes. Novel processes have been developed to create corneal layers that closely mimic the reflectance and scattering coefficients of the real layers of the cornea, as imaged by spectral bandwidth of OCT.