Characterizing plant material is crucial in terms of early disease detection, pest control, physiological assessments, and growth monitoring, which are essential parameters to increase production in agriculture and prevent unnecessary economic losses. The conventional methods employed to assess the aforementioned parameters have several limitations, such as invasive inspection, complexity, high time consumption, and costly features. In recent years, optical coherence tomography (OCT), which is an ultra-high resolution, non-invasive, and real-time unique image-based approach has been widely utilized as a significant and potential tool for assessing plant materials in numerous aspects. The obtained OCT cross-sections and volumetrics, as well as the amplitude signals of plant materials, have the capability to reveal vital information in both axial and lateral directions owing to the high resolution of the imaging system. This review discusses recent technological trends and advanced applications of OCT, which have been potentially adapted for numerous agricultural applications, such as non-invasive disease screening, optical signals-based growth speed detection, the structural analysis of plant materials, and microbiological discoveries. Therefore, this review offers a comprehensive exploration of recent advanced OCT technological approaches for agricultural applications, which provides insights into their potential to incorporate OCT technology into numerous industries.

Non‐contact, high‐resolution imaging is critical in modern industrial environments, where complex and multilayered structures demand precise inspection without disrupting production. Optical coherence tomography (OCT), a non‐destructive, depth‐resolved imaging modality, has emerged as a transformative tool for real‐time visualization of internal features in advanced manufacturing processes. This review begins with the principles of OCT and provides a comprehensive analysis of its applications across key manufacturing sectors, including display inspection, thin‐film monitoring, microelectronics, printed circuit board (PCB) analysis, laser‐based manufacturing, and coating evaluation. For each domain, representative methods are examined for their effectiveness in detecting subsurface defects, measuring internal geometries, and supporting quality control. The role of OCT in industry is highlighted through comparisons with conventional inspection techniques. In addition, the review discusses current challenges across resolution, optical penetration and contrast, signal quality, system integration, hardware cost, throughput, and artificial intelligence (AI) and data infrastructure. It also highlights emerging advances in adaptive optics, multimodal and AI‐enhanced imaging, compact and portable OCT platforms, and next‐generation computational and data‐processing architectures for real‐time industrial deployment. By combining technical evaluation, comparative analysis, and future‐oriented perspectives, this review positions OCT as a core technology and foundational tool for next‐generation quality assurance in smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 environments.

Whole-directional scanning methodology is required to observe distinctive features of an entire physical structure with a three dimensional (3D) visualization. However, the implementation of whole-directional scanning is challenging for conventional optical coherence tomography (OCT), which scans a limited portion of the sample by utilizing unidirectional and bidirectional scanning methods. Therefore, in this paper an integrated quad-scanner (QS) strategy-based OCT method was implemented to obtain the whole-directional volumetry of a sample by employing four scanning arms installed around the sample. The simultaneous and sequential image acquisition capabilities are the conceptual key points of the proposed QS-OCT method, and were implemented using four precisely aligned scanning arms and applied in a complementary way according to the experimental criteria. To assess the feasibility of obtaining whole-directional morphological structures, a roll of Scotch tape, an ex vivo mouse heart, and kidney specimens were imaged and independently obtained tissue images at different directions were delicately merged to compose the 3D volume data set. The results revealed the potential merits of QS-OCT-based whole-directional imaging, which can be a favorable inspection method for various discoveries that require the dynamic coordinates of the whole physical structure.

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is a hybrid non-invasive imaging technique used to merge high optical contrast and high acoustic resolution in deep tissue. PAI has been extensively developed by utilizing its advantages that include deep imaging depth, high resolution, and label-free imaging. As a representative implementation of PAI, photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) has been used in preclinical and clinical studies for its micron-scale spatial resolution capability with high optical absorption contrast. Several handheld and portable PAM systems have been developed that improve its applicability to several fields, making it versatile. In this study, we developed a laboratory-customized, two-axis, waterproof, galvanometer scanner-based handheld PAM (WP-GVS-HH-PAM), which provides an extended field of view (14.5 × 9 mm²) for wide-range imaging. The fully waterproof handheld probe enables free movement for imaging regardless of sample shape, and volume rate and scanning region are adjustable per experimental conditions. Results of WP-GVS-HH-PAM-based phantom and in vivo imaging of mouse tissues (ear, iris, and brain) confirm the feasibility and applicability of our system as an imaging modality for various biomedical applications.

Depth-visualizing sensitivity can be degraded due to imperfect optical alignment and non-equidistant distribution of optical signals in the pixel array, which requires a measurement of the re-sampling process. To enhance this depth-visualizing sensitivity, reference and sample arm-channeled spectra corresponding to different depths using mirrors were obtained to calibrate the spectrum sampling prior to Fourier transformation. During the process, eight interferogram patterns corresponding to point spread function (PSF) signals at eight optical path length differences were acquired. To calibrate the spectrum, generated intensity points of the original interferogram were re-indexed towards a maximum intensity range, and these interferogram re-indexing points were employed to generate a new lookup table. The entire software-based process consists of eight consecutive steps. Experimental results revealed that the proposed method can achieve images with a high depth-visualizing sensitivity. Furthermore, the results validate the proposed method as a rapidly performable spectral calibration technique, and the real-time images acquired using our technique confirm the simplicity and applicability of the method to existing optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems. The sensitivity roll-off prior to the spectral calibration was measured as 28 dB and it was halved after the calibration process.

To identify the vascular alteration by photodynamic therapy (PDT), the utilization of high-resolution, high-speed, and wide-field photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) has gained enormous interest. The rapid changes in vasculature during PDT treatment and monitoring of tumor tissue activation in the orthotopic pancreatic cancer model have received limited attention in previous studies. Here, a fully two-axes waterproof galvanometer scanner-based photoacoustic microscopy (WGS-PAM) system was developed for in vivo monitoring of dynamic variations in micro blood vessels due to PDT in an orthotopic pancreatic cancer mouse model. The photosensitizer (PS), Chlorin e6 (Ce6), was utilized to activate antitumor reactions in response to the irradiation of a 660 nm light source. Microvasculatures of angiogenesis tissue were visualized on a 40 mm² area using the WGS-PAM system at 30 min intervals for 3 h after the PDT treatment. The decline in vascular intensity was observed at 24.5% along with a 32.4% reduction of the vascular density at 3 h post-PDT by the analysis of PAM images. The anti-vascularization effect was also identified with fluorescent imaging. Moreover, Ce6-PDT increased apoptotic and necrotic markers while decreasing vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in MIA PaCa-2 and BxPC-3 pancreatic cancer cell lines. The approach of the WGS-PAM system shows the potential to investigate PDT effects on the mechanism of angiographic dynamics with high-resolution wide-field imaging modalities.