Space-division multiplexing for snapshot polarimetric imaging of tissue samples

Abstract

Interaction of light with biological material constitutes a powerful tool for example in medical diagnosis. For example, the degree of linear polarization (DoLP) allows to differentiate between healthy and cancerous tissue. Polarimetric imaging by means of space-division techniques has become recently popular due to advances in nanotechnology and commercial availability of microgrid polarizers integrated onto the sensing chip of a camera. In order to obtain the linear Stokes parameters from a sample in a single shot, we developed a microscopy setup incorporating a polarized sensor in the imaging plane. Besides, by means of illumination multiplexing with linear States of Polarization in the input, Mueller matrix elements can be retrieved in a single shot. Experimental results for measures of DoLP and AoP as well as Mueller matrix elements over tissue samples are presented.