Observation of the Microstructure of Human Hair Based on a Single Detector Optical Coherence Tomography

Taking advantage of OCT's high sensitivity and high resolution, in this paper, we use a single-detector OCT system to detect the internal microstructure of the hair of Asians. The main structure of hair is composed of scale, cortex (haircare), and medulla. We compared healthy hair with dyed hair and permed hair and found that hair treated with chemical dyes can not recognize the structure of keratin and medulla in the inner cortex of the hair. And Hair after a high-temperature perm is not significantly different from untreated hair. The results show that the microstructure of hair can be observed by single-detector OCT, and the damage degree of oxidized hair dyes to the microstructure of hair is greater than that of permed hair.