Over the last few decades, optical sensing and imaging have attracted much attention in biomedical applications such as near-infrared spectroscopy [10], photoacoustic microscopy [11,12], nonlinear microscopy [13,14], and optical coherence tomography (OCT) [15,16]. Compared with other optical imaging techniques, OCT has the advantages of deeper imaging depth, requiring no contrast agents, and high imaging speed. Based on the interferometer configuration, either two-dimensional or three-dimensional micro-structural information can be reconstructed without destroying the sample. Since 1991, many research groups have demonstrated that OCT can be applied in various biomedical fields such as ophthalmology, dermatology, and oncology [17�C19].

In the last decade, the imaging speed and system sensitivity have been greatly improved due to the development of Fourier-domain OCT (FD-OCT) without mechanical scanning in the reference arm of the interferometer. Furthermore, FD-OCT includes two different configurations known as swept-source OCT (SS-OCT) [20�C22] and spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) [23�C25]. Aside from obtaining structural information, OCT can perform functional imaging including tissue birefringence, blood flow velocity and angiography [26�C28].Many dermatological studies using OCT have been reported [29�C35], most of which focus on the detection of pathological changes in the skin due to skin disorders. Additionally, dermal birefringence, which can be utilized for the diagnosis of sun damage [33] or for the determination of burn depth [34], can be visualized using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT).

Furthermore, Yasuno et al. were able to differentiate young and old photo-aged human skin based on a birefringence analysis using PS-OCT [35]. In addition to characterizing skin morphology, OCT has been proposed Carfilzomib by Ohmi et al. as a tool for performing dynamic analysis of mental sweating from human fingertips [36]. The same group was also able to visualize the dynamics of the small arteries and veins of human fingers using OCT [37].In this study, an SS-OCT system is implemented for the investigation of moisture-related optical property of human skin. In our experiments, OCT scans taken every 3 min after soaking the palm in water were used to observe water diffusion and evaluate the moisture-related attenuation coefficient of human skin.

The time-resolved OCT scans revealed the process of water diffusion in the skin, which we then analyzed quantitatively along with the skin’s moisture by evaluating the skin’s attenuation coefficients. Then, the OCT scanning results were compared with the measurements made by a commercial moisture monitor. Furthermore, to investigate the diffusion velocity in skin, the positions of center-of-mass of backscattered intensities in the longitudinal direction from OCT images are evaluated.2.