Abstract
We investigate potential improvements of continuous-wave diffuse reflectance spectroscopy within highly scattering media by employing polarization gating. Simulations are used to show the extent at which the effective optical pathlength varies in a typical scattering medium as a function of the optical wavelength, the total level of absorption, and the selected polarization channels, including elliptical and circular polarization channels. Experiments then demonstrate that a wavelength dependent polarization gating scheme may reduce the prior knowledge required to solve the problem of chromophore quantification. This is achieved by finding combinations of polarization channels which have similar effective optical pathlengths through the medium at each wavelength.
Highlights
Polarization sensitive image analysis offers unique capabilities for biomedical applications, such as the ability to isolate or remove surface layer reflections to improve visibility [1], or as a means of tissue characterization for diagnostic or monitoring purposes [2,3]
We are interested in using polarization to improve the accuracy of wide-field diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, where light sources and detectors are arranged to illuminate and collect light on the same side of the sample
We demonstrate that a significant level of control of the effective optical pathlength can be achieved in the reflection geometry through appropriate choice of polarization channels
Summary
Polarization sensitive image analysis offers unique capabilities for biomedical applications, such as the ability to isolate or remove surface layer reflections to improve visibility [1], or as a means of tissue characterization for diagnostic or monitoring purposes [2,3]. When investigating samples which strongly scatter light, such as typical biological tissues when probed in the visible to near-infrared range, the average optical pathlength depends non-trivially on a number of factors including the wavelength, the nature of the scattering structures, and on the total level of absorption. This is problematic since the relationship between the measured attenuation of light and the medium absorption becomes non-linear, significantly increasing the difficulty in analyzing chromophore content.
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