Dual DoFP polarimeters based collinear reflection Mueller matrix microscope for fast process monitoring

Abstract

Compared to traditional optical technology, Mueller matrix imaging can obtain sample’s complete polarization properties, thus can better characterize the microstructure and anisotropy information of the sample. For thick biological tissues or insitu living organs, backscattering Mueller matrix imaging is particularly attractive. In previous studies, we have established the collinear reflection Mueller matrix microscope based on dual rotating retarders (DRR-CRMMM), whose long acquisition time makes it difficult to characterize the polarization properties of the dynamically changing sample. In this paper, we propose and implement a fast collinear reflection Mueller matrix microscope based on dual DoFP polarimeters (DoFPs-CRMMM) and the corresponding calibration scheme to achieve accurate measurements. The system, which takes a Mueller matrix image within a few seconds, is tested for polarization monitoring of biological tissues during tissue optical clearing, and various polarization feature parameters are derived from the Mueller matrix images to reveal the characteristic microstructure variation of the tissues during the dynamic process of tissue optical clearing.