Plasmon-resonant gold nanorods (GNRs) are demonstrated as strong absorption contrast agents for optical coherence tomography (OCT). OCT imaging of tissue phantoms doped with GNRs of different resonant wavelengths and concentrations is studied. To utilize the high absorption property of GNRs, a differential absorption OCT imaging is introduced to retrieve the absorption information of GNRs from conventional backscattered signals. It is shown that the contrast of the OCT image can be enhanced significantly when the plasmon resonant wavelength of the GNRs matches the central wavelength of the OCT source.
