We report a method for extracting the birefringence properties of biological samples with micrometer-scale resolution in three dimensions, using a new form of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography. The method measures net retardance, net fast axis, and total reflectivity as a function of depth into the sample. Polarization sensing is accomplished by illumination of the sample with at least three separate polarization states during consecutive acquisitions of the same pixel, A scan, or B scan. The method can be implemented by use of non-polarization-maintaining fiber and a single detector. In a calibration test of the system, net retardance was measured with an average error of 7.5° (standard deviation 2.2°) over the retardance range 0° to 180°, and a fast axis with average error of 4.8° over the range 0° to 180°.

© 2001 Optical Society of America

[Optical Society of America ]

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Citation lists with outbound citation links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article level metrics are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

Related Journal Articles

• Real-time fiber-based multi-functional spectral-domain optical coherence tomography at 1.3 µm (OE)
• Spectral domain polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography achieved by single camera detection (OE)
• Polarization-maintaining fiber based polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography in spectral domain (OL)
• Single-camera polarization-sensitive spectral-domain OCT by spatial frequency encoding (OL)
• GPU accelerated real-time multi-functional spectral-domain optical coherence tomography system at 1300nm (OE)

Related Conference Papers

• Quantitative Evaluation of Nanoshells as a Contrast Agent for Optical Coherence Tomography
• Bioconjugated Au/Ag Nanocages as a Novel Optical Imaging Contrast and Thermal Therapeutic Agent
• Real-Time Ultrahigh-Resolution Lateral-Priority OCT Imaging with a Broad Spectrum Throughput Acousto-Optic Modulation
• An all-digital real-time optical coherence tomographic system
• Software compensation for dispersion mismatch in optical coherence tomography