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The reflective frequency-domain optical delay line employing a diffraction grating, a lens, and a tiltable mirror has emerged as a device particularly suitable for interferometry and optical coherence tomography. The device is comprehensively described, both theoretically and experimentally, in the context of interferometry. The variations of phase and group delay produced by the device as well as its dispersive properties are described and demonstrated experimentally.

We propose and demonstrate a method of real-time dispersion compensation suitable for scanning interferometry and optical coherence tomography. Static grating tilt in a scanning frequency-domain optical delay line is shown to produce dispersion that is linearly proportional to scan position, and we use this property to achieve depth-dependent dispersion compensation during an interferometric scan through a dispersive sample.

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