Revealing stress-induced changes equivalence between polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography and polarimetric camera measurements

Abstract

Polarization-Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography (PS-OCT) is a widely-used technique for high-resolution material characterization since it allows for real-time structural analysis and imperfections identification. Nevertheless, when the sample is too big or imperfections are not on the micrometric scale, PS-OCT imaging can become too complex to be performed on a regular basis. Alternatively, polarimetric camera (PCam) imaging can obtain polarization measurements of a sample at a macroscopic scale, allowing for a faster and cheaper inspection of the sample. In doing so, the depth-profiling capabilities of PS-OCT would be forfeited, as well as the ability to measure other than the linear polarization qualities of the light beam. This paper compares the data that can be easily extracted from a PCam, with the complete and more complex characterization of the polarization of light that can be obtained with a PS-OCT device. The comparison of both systems is assessed through the evaluation of their performance when measuring different stress states of a sample.