Polarized OCT Imaging System

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a cross-sectional, micrometre-scale imaging modality with widespread clinical application. Typical OCT systems sacrifice lateral resolution to achieve long depths of focus for bulk tissue imaging, and therefore tend to have better axial than lateral resolution.

The Polarized OCT Imaging System uses an incident beam of known polarization and a dual-detector design to incorporate polarization information in 2D cross-sectional and 3D volumetric images of a sample.

OCT is typically performed with an incident beam of unknown polarization and a single detector unit. The Polarized OCT Imaging System controls the polarization incident on the sample and reflected in the reference arm of the interferometer by using two carefully aligned wave plates. The preserved polarization information is then measured using two detectors.

The system consists of: laser light source, scanning galvanometer, spectrometer and computer.

Applications: biological imaging, medical diagnosis.