Abstract:Abstract. We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that the phase retardance and relative optic-axis orientation of a sample can be calculated without prior knowledge of the actual value of the phase modulation amplitude when using a polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography system based on continuous polarization modulation (CPM-PS-OCT). We also demonstrate that the sample Jones matrix can be calculated at any values of the phase modulation amplitude in a reasonable range depending on the sys… Show more
Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) is widely
used to image fibrous biological tissues, providing additional image
contrast compared to intensity-based OCT, including birefringence and
optic axis orientation information. Here a theoretical and
experimental analysis of the effect of the system fiber on
determination of sample optic axis orientation using a previously
reported algorithm based on the angle between Stokes vectors on the
Poincaré sphere in fiber-based PS-OCT experimentally confirms that the
algorithm only works correctly when the parameters of the system fiber
are kept constant during the imaging acquisition of each frame. To
extend the use of the algorithm to situations in which the parameters
of the system fiber are varied among A-scans or image frames, which is
true when the OCT probe scanning does move the sample arm fiber, we
propose the use of polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) with a special
polarization axis orientation as the sample arm fiber for extracting
sample optic axis orientation using fiber-based PS-OCT systems. The
use of the PMF makes the system insensitive to variations of the
sample fiber birefringence for determining optic axis orientation by
automatically removing the offset ambiguity from each A-scan. We
demonstrated by using a computer evaluation model that the proposed
method is capable of extracting the relative optic axis orientation
correctly when the PMF birefringence is varied among A-scans due to
external disturbances to the system fiber, provided that the
polarization axis orientation (slow or fast) of the PMF is kept
constant during the measurement.
Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) is widely
used to image fibrous biological tissues, providing additional image
contrast compared to intensity-based OCT, including birefringence and
optic axis orientation information. Here a theoretical and
experimental analysis of the effect of the system fiber on
determination of sample optic axis orientation using a previously
reported algorithm based on the angle between Stokes vectors on the
Poincaré sphere in fiber-based PS-OCT experimentally confirms that the
algorithm only works correctly when the parameters of the system fiber
are kept constant during the imaging acquisition of each frame. To
extend the use of the algorithm to situations in which the parameters
of the system fiber are varied among A-scans or image frames, which is
true when the OCT probe scanning does move the sample arm fiber, we
propose the use of polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) with a special
polarization axis orientation as the sample arm fiber for extracting
sample optic axis orientation using fiber-based PS-OCT systems. The
use of the PMF makes the system insensitive to variations of the
sample fiber birefringence for determining optic axis orientation by
automatically removing the offset ambiguity from each A-scan. We
demonstrated by using a computer evaluation model that the proposed
method is capable of extracting the relative optic axis orientation
correctly when the PMF birefringence is varied among A-scans due to
external disturbances to the system fiber, provided that the
polarization axis orientation (slow or fast) of the PMF is kept
constant during the measurement.
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