Optical biometers are routinely used to measure intraocular distances in ophthalmic applications such as cataract surgery planning. However, due to their high cost and reduced transportability, access to them is still limited in low-resource and remote settings, where the prevalence of cataract is higher. To increase patients’ access to optical biometry we propose a novel low-cost frequency-domain optical delay line (FDODL) based on a stepper motor spinning a tilted mirror, integrated into a time-domain (TD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) system. Optical simulations of the low-cost FDODL demonstrated its capability of axially scanning different ranges simply by selecting different tilt angles of the spinning mirror with respect to the motor shaft direction, without any changes to the motor itself. Considering off-the-shelf components up to 2-inch in aperture and a tilt of 5 mechanical degrees, the optical pathlength range could reach up to 26.63 mm. A prototype of the low-cost FDODL with a 1.5-degree tilt angle and an A-scan frequency of 10 Hz was experimentally implemented and combined with a TD-OCT system. The scanning capability of the system was characterized to be 7.31 mm, in good agreement with the results of the simulation. The TD-OCT sample arm featured a fixed delay unit with two orthogonally polarized sample beams, focusing on the anterior segment and on the retina, respectively. The intraocular distances of a model eye were measured with the proposed low-cost biometer and found in agreement with the manufacturer’s specs, validating our novel design.
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