We have investigated the usage of gold-plated bare fiber probes for in situ imaging of retinal layers and surrounding ocular
tissues using time-domain common-path optical coherence tomography. The fabricated intra-vitreous gold-plated micro-fiber
probe can be fully integrated with surgical tools working in close proximity to the tissue to provide subsurface images having
a self-contained reference plane independent to the Fresnel reflection between the distal end of the probe and the following
medium for achieving reference in typical common-path optical coherence tomography. We have fully characterized the probe
in an aqueous medium equivalent to the vitreous humor in the eye and were able to differentiate various functional retinal
tissue layers whose thickness is larger than the system’s resolution.