Enhanced depolarization contrast in polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography

Noe Ortega-Quijano (1) , Tahereh Marvdashti (2) , Audrey K. Ellerbee Bowden (2)

1 IPR - Institut de Physique de Rennes
2 Stanford University

We demonstrate the first application of the differential depolarization index (DDI) for depolarization imaging in polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT). Unlike the widely used degree of polarization uniformity (DOPU), the DDI is independent of the incident polarization state and, therefore, more robust to varying system and sample parameters. Moreover, it can be applied to single-input-polarization-state PS-OCT systems, and it overcomes several limitations of the emerging depolarization index used in multiple-input-polarization-state systems. Our results on tissue phantoms and human skin prove that DDI yields significant depolarization contrast improvements compared to DOPU, which highlights its potential for depolarization imaging in PS-OCT. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America

Keywords: differential mueller matrix; homogeneous media; uniformity; calculus; index; model; oct

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Noe Ortega-Quijano, Tahereh Marvdashti, Audrey K. Ellerbee Bowden. Enhanced depolarization contrast in polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography. Optics Letters, 2016, 41 (10), pp.2350--2353. ⟨10.1364/OL.41.002350⟩. ⟨hal-01343405⟩