Abstract
Mueller matrix polarimetry is widely used in biomedical studies and applications, for it can provide abundant microstructural information about tissues. Recently, several methods have been proposed to decompose the Mueller matrix into groups of parameters related to specific optical properties which can be used to reveal the microstructural information of tissue samples more clearly and quantitatively. In this study, we thoroughly compare the differences among the parameters derived from the Mueller matrix polar decomposition (MMPD) and Mueller matrix transformation (MMT), which are two popular methods in tissue polarimetry studies and applications, while applying them on different tissue samples for both backscattering and transmission imaging. Based on the Mueller matrix data obtained using the setups, we carry out a comparative analysis of the parameters derived from both methods representing the same polarization properties, namely depolarization, linear retardance, fast axis orientation and diattenuation. IN particular, we propose several modified MMT parameters, whose abilities are also analyzed for revealing the information about the specific type of tissue samples. The results presented in this study evaluate the applicability of the original and modified MMT parameters, then give the suggestions for appropriate parameter selection in tissue polarimetry, which can be helpful for future biomedical and clinical applications.
Highlights
Our previous studies showed that the matrix transformation (MMT) parameters t2434 and t4243 can be used to reflect the linear retardance of the tissues [14,29]. Both of the parameters may slightly deviate from each other when measuring complicated tissue samples containing layered anisotropic structures, reducing the accuracy of Mueller matrix polarimetry for quantitative tissue evaluation. To deal with this problem, we proposed a modified MMT parameter tqr based on the elements from both the fourth column and fourth row shown in Equation (15) to describe the linear retardance property
In this study we compared the parameters derived from the MMT and Mueller matrix polar decomposition (MMPD) methods thoroughly by measuring two types of tissue samples: seven kinds of thin tissue slices and five kinds of bulk tissue samples, with a transmission Mueller matrix microscope and backscattering Mueller matrix measurement setup
Our preliminary experimental results showed that: (1) for obtaining the diattenuation property of complex tissues, we can calculate it through the modified MMT parameter t121314, with a fast speed and a high correlation with the MMPD parameter D; (2) for revealing the linear retardance value related to the density of birefringent structures like layered fibers of thin tissues, the modified MMT parameter tqr can reach a high linear correlation with the MMPD parameter δ
Summary
As a non-invasive, non-contact and label-free tool, Mueller matrix polarimetry is widely used in biomedical studies and clinical applications, for it can provide abundant microstructural information about tissues and cells [1,2,3,4]. To solve this problem, in the past decades several methods have been proposed to decompose the Mueller matrix into groups of parameters related to specific optical properties which can be used to reveal the microstructural information of tissue samples more clearly and quantitatively [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. The Mueller matrix polar decomposition (MMPD) and Mueller matrix transformation (MMT) are two popular methods in tissue polarimetry studies and applications
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