Dark field optical coherence microscopy

The invention relates to an optical coherence microscopy system for fast, phase resolved imaging by means of optical coherence microscopy with decoupled illumination and detection apertures, producing a dark-field effect with an enhanced optical contrast. The setup uses a light source with an appropriate temporal coherence, an interferometer and an array detector combined with a spectrometer. The dark-field effect is produced by optical filter means in the illumination and detection paths, positioned in conjugated planes of the sample microscope objective. These optical means comprise for example refractive or diffractive elements, amplitude or phase masks, or programmable spatial light modulators. The object is scanned via a scanning unit allowing a point scan of the object.