Double-pass imaging polarimetry in the human eye

A Mueller-matrix imaging polarimeter was developed to measure spatially resolved polarization properties in the living human eye. The apparatus is a double-pass setup that incorporates two liquid-crystal variable retarders and a slow-scan CCD camera in the recording stage. Series of 16 images for the combinations of independent polarization states in the first and second passages were recorded for two experimental conditions: with the camera conjugated either with the retina or with the eye's pupil plane. Spatially resolved collections of Mueller matrices and the degree of polarization were calculated from those images for both retinal and pupil planes.