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Free keywords:
cross polarized optical coherence tomography, optical systems, biomedical imaging
Abstract:
Cross polarized optical coherence tomography offers enhanced contrast in certain
pathological conditions. Traditional cross-polarized optical coherence tomography systems
require a defined input polarization and thus require several polarization controlling elements
increasing the overall complexity of the system. Our proposed system requires a single
quarter wave plate as a polarization controller thus simplifying the system significantly.
Majority of Cross-polarized optical coherence tomography systems are spectrometer based
which suffers from slow speed and low signal to noise ratio. In this work, we present a swept
source based cross-polarized optical coherence tomography system that works for any input
polarization state. The system was tested against known birefringent materials such as quarter
wave plate. Furthermore, biological samples such as finger, nail and chicken breast were
imaged to demonstrate the potential of our technique.