Abstract
Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography is gaining attention because of its ability to diagnose certain pathological conditions at an early stage. The majority of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography systems require a polarization controller and a polarizer to obtain the optimal polarization state of the light at the sample. Such systems are prone to misalignment since any movement of the optical fiber normally coupled to the light source will change the polarization state of the incident beam. We propose and demonstrate an input polarization-independent polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography system using a depolarizer that works for any input polarization state of the light source. The change in the optical power at the sample for arbitrary input polarized light for the standard polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography system was found to be approximately 84% compared to 9% for our proposed method. The developed system was used to measure the retardance and optical axis orientation of a quarter-wave plate and the obtained values matched closely to the expectation. To further demonstrate the capability of measuring the birefringent properties of biological samples, we also imaged the nail bed. We believe that the proposed system is a robust polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography system and that it will improve the diagnostic capabilities in clinical settings.
Highlights
Optical coherence tomography (OCT), first demonstrated in 1991,1 is a powerful imaging technique to acquire crosssectional images with a depth resolution of a few micrometers
The majority of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography systems require a polarization controller and a polarizer to obtain the optimal polarization state of the light at the sample. Such systems are prone to misalignment since any movement of the optical fiber normally coupled to the light source will change the polarization state of the incident beam
We propose and demonstrate an input polarization-independent polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography system using a depolarizer that works for any input polarization state of the light source
Summary
Optical coherence tomography (OCT), first demonstrated in 1991,1 is a powerful imaging technique to acquire crosssectional images with a depth resolution of a few micrometers. OCT is an interferometric imaging technique that measures the backscattering of the sample to obtain two-dimensional and threedimensional images. Standard OCT is good at detecting morphological changes, but such changes only present themselves at an advanced stage of the disease. Several pathological conditions such as cancer can be detected at an early stage by measuring the birefringent properties of the tissue.. To analyze the additional details of the polarization information carried by the scattered light from the sample, an extended form of OCT, called polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT), has been developed. Several pathological conditions such as cancer can be detected at an early stage by measuring the birefringent properties of the tissue. To analyze the additional details of the polarization information carried by the scattered light from the sample, an extended form of OCT, called polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT), has been developed.
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