Abstract
We have developed a polarization microscope based on a commercial transmission microscope. We replace the halogen light source by a collimated LED light source module of six different colors. We use achromatic polarized optical elements that can cover the six different wavelength ranges in the polarization state generator (PSG) and polarization state analyzer (PSA) modules. The dual-rotating wave plate method is used to measure the Mueller matrix of samples, which requires the simultaneous rotation of the two quarter-wave plates in both PSG and PSA at certain angular steps. A scientific CCD detector is used as the image receiving module. A LabView-based software is developed to control the rotation angels of the wave plates and the exposure time of the detector to allow the system to run fully automatically in preprogrammed schedules. Standard samples, such as air, polarizers, and quarter-wave plates, are used to calibrate the intrinsic Mueller matrix of optical components, such as the objectives, using the eigenvalue calibration method. Errors due to the images walk-off in the PSA are studied. Errors in the Mueller matrices are below 0.01 using air and polarizer as standard samples. Data analysis based on Mueller matrix transformation and Mueller matrix polarization decomposition is used to demonstrate the potential application of this microscope in pathological diagnosis.
Highlights
Polarization imaging techniques are capable of probing the microstructural and optical properties of samples.[1,2] They have been applied in different fields, including material characterization,[3,4] medical diagnosis,[5] remote sensing,[6] target detection,[7] and so on
Mueller matrix measurements are more appropriate for polarization characterization of biological tissues because it describes all of the polarization properties, such as diattenuation, retardance, and depolarization.[12,13,14,15,16,17]
A normal transmission or reflection mode microscope can be converted to a Mueller matrix microscope by adding a polarization-state generator (PSG) and a polarization-state analyzer (PSA) to the existing optical path
Summary
Polarization imaging techniques are capable of probing the microstructural and optical properties of samples.[1,2] They have been applied in different fields, including material characterization,[3,4] medical diagnosis,[5] remote sensing,[6] target detection,[7] and so on. For complicated samples with strong depolarization and complex anisotropy like various biological tissues and cells, birefringence alone is not enough to describe different polarization characteristics. Mueller matrix measurements are more appropriate for polarization characterization of biological tissues because it describes all of the polarization properties, such as diattenuation, retardance, and depolarization.[12,13,14,15,16,17] The hardware of Mueller matrix measurement is mostly similar to the corresponding nonpolarized measurements except for the polarization modulation optics. Zhou et al.: Modulus design multiwavelength polarization microscope for transmission Mueller matrix imaging and high precision, the modulus design polarization microscope for transmission Mueller matrix imaging shows promising prospects
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