Fercher, A. F.Hitzenberger, C. K.Sticker, M.Zawadzki, R.Karamata, B.Lasser, T.2006-10-032006-10-032006-10-03200110.1364/OE.9.000610https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/234905WOS:0001724882000021924Dispersive samples introduce a wavelength dependent phase distortion to the probe beam. This leads to a noticeable loss of depth resolution in high resolution OCT using broadband light sources. The standard technique to avoid this consequence is to balance the dispersion of the sample by arranging a dispersive material in the reference arm. However, the impact of dispersion is depth dependent. A corresponding depth dependent dispersion balancing technique is diffcult to implement. Here we present a numerical dispersion compensation technique for Partial Coherence Interferometry (PCI) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) based on numerical correlation of the depth scan signal with a depth variant kernel. It can be used a posteriori and provides depth dependent dispersion compensation. Examples of dispersion compensated depth scan signals obtained from microscope cover glasses are presented. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America.text::journal::journal article::research article