title: Correcting optical-axis calculation in polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography.
abstract: Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PSOCT) has found many applications in imaging birefringence tissue samples. Polarization-sensitive detection is often implemented by utilizing a circularly polarized incident light and detecting the two orthogonal horizontal- and vertical-polarized interference components. However, the obtained optical axes images were inappropriately represented as depth-dependent periodic maps in all reported studies. A detailed analysis confirmed that this misrepresentation was caused by the accumulation of optical retardation with depth. A simple method was proposed to numerically correct this optical-axis calculation. Experimental studies in tendon tissue demonstrated that this method can be applied to map the 2-D optical-axis distributions in enface PSOCT images.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. cf7b6@mail.missouri.edu
authors.forename: Chuanmao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yao
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001718:Birefringence; D002645:Chickens; D003198:Computer Simulation; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D013710:Tendons; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*