title: Quantitative assessment of birefringent skin structures in scattered light confocal imaging using radially polarized light.
abstract: The polarization characteristics of birefringent tissues could be only partially obtained using linearly polarized light in polarization sensitive optical imaging. Here we analyze the change in polarization of backscattered light from birefringent structures versus the orientations of the incident polarizations using linearly, circularly and radially polarized light in a cross-polarized confocal microscope. A spatially variable retardation plate composed of eight sectors of λ/2 wave plates was used to transform linearly polarized light into a radially polarized light. Based on the experimental data obtained from ex-vivo measurements on human scalp hairs and in-vivo measurements on hair and skin, we exemplify that the underestimation of the birefringence content resulting from the orientation related effects associated with the use of linearly polarized light for imaging tissues containing wavy birefringent structures could be minimized by using radially polarized light.
authors.affiliation: Care & Health Applications Group, Philips Research Europe, High Tech Campus 34, 5656AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands. babu.varghese@philips.com.
authors.forename: Babu
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Varghese
authors.forename: Rieko
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Verhagen
authors.forename: Altaf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hussain
authors.forename: Clemence
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Boudot
authors.forename: Qiangqiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Tai
authors.forename: Siqi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Jasmin Alexandra
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Holz
authors.forename: Natallia Eduarda
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: Uzunbajakava
mesh_terms: D001718:Birefringence; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008029:Lighting / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008859:Microscopy, Polarization / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012867:Skin / Q000166:cytology*; D012879:Skin Physiological Phenomena
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