In 1991, Huang et al. of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first used the developed OCT to observe the isolated human retina and optic disc.
 in 1995,it was officially used in ophthalmology. The initial clinical application of OCT is OCT1, with only 10 scanning procedures and 7 analysis procedures.
In 1997, the OCT2 scanning procedure was increased by 2 and the analysis procedure was increased by 4. In terms of retinal thickness measurement and RNFL thickness measurement, OCT2 has better repeatability, and the measurement of macular thickness has a variation value of <11μm.
In 2002, the appearance of Stratus OCT, namely OCT3, marked a new stage of OCT technology. OCT3 provided 18 scanning procedures and 19 analysis procedures, and the scan images of the macular area could identify more layers.
In 2006, frequency domain OCT appeared, faster scanning speed, higher resolution.