Abstract
A Monte-Carlo-based phase retardation estimator is developed to correct the systematic error in phase retardation measurement by polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT). Recent research has revealed that the phase retardation measured by PS-OCT has a distribution that is neither symmetric nor centered at the true value. Hence, a standard mean estimator gives us erroneous estimations of phase retardation, and it degrades the performance of PS-OCT for quantitative assessment. In this paper, the noise property in phase retardation is investigated in detail by Monte-Carlo simulation and experiments. A distribution transform function is designed to eliminate the systematic error by using the result of the Monte-Carlo simulation. This distribution transformation is followed by a mean estimator. This process provides a significantly better estimation of phase retardation than a standard mean estimator. This method is validated both by numerical simulations and experiments. The application of this method to in vitro and in vivo biological samples is also demonstrated.
Highlights
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides high-resolution depth-resolved images of biological tissues noninvasively [1, 2], OCT is suitable for applications in ophthalmology [3, 4], dermatology [5], dentistry [6], and cardiology [7]
Tissue birefringence is strongly associated with the structural properties of biological tissues; polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) has been adopted for imaging skin [12,13,14,15], cartilage [16], teeth [17], and the anterior and posterior segments of the eye [18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25]
We proposed a nonlinear method to estimate a correct phase retardation value from raw phase retardation values measured via PS-OCT
Summary
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides high-resolution depth-resolved images of biological tissues noninvasively [1, 2], OCT is suitable for applications in ophthalmology [3, 4], dermatology [5], dentistry [6], and cardiology [7]. Polarization sensitive OCT (PSOCT), which possesses all the advantages stated above, is a functional extension of OCT. It enables both conventional backscattering tomography and birefringence tomography [8,9,10,11]. Phase retardation is an important birefringent property of tissue, and it is widely employed to visualize PS-OCT images. A standard mean estimator, i.e., average, cannot provide an appropriate estimation of phase retardation, and it significantly reduces the utility of PS-OCT for quantitative measurement [27]
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