Design considerations for polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography with a single input polarization state.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Optics
• Optical Engineering
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) is crucial for analyzing birefringent tissues.
• Existing PS-OCT designs often have limitations in flexibility and simplicity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate a generalized design for PS-OCT systems.
• To demonstrate the existence of an extensive design space for simple PS-OCT systems.
• To provide guidelines for designing accurate PS-OCT systems.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a generalized design for PS-OCT with a single input polarization state (SIPS).
• Employed simulation and experimental validation.
• Analyzed systemic errors and their impact on design performance.

Main Results:

• Proved the existence of an infinite design space for simple PS-OCT systems yielding closed-form birefringence expressions.
• Demonstrated novel PS-OCT configurations through simulation and experiment.
• Showed that alternative designs perform comparably to traditional SIPS PS-OCT after accounting for errors.

Conclusions:

• A generalized PS-OCT design framework allows for simpler systems with accurate birefringence measurement.
• The findings enable the development of new PS-OCT configurations tailored for specific birefringent samples.
• This research paves the way for a new generation of highly accurate PS-OCT systems.