Polarization Sensitive Spectroscopic Optical Coherence Tomography for multimodal imaging

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive method for 3D and cross-sectional imaging of biological and non-biological objects. The OCT measurements are provided in non-contact and absolutely safe way for the tested sample. Nowadays, the OCT is widely applied in medical diagnosis especially in ophthalmology, as well as dermatology, oncology and many more. Despite of great progress in OCT measurements there are still a vast number of issues like tissue recognition or imaging contrast enhancement that have not been solved yet. Here we are going to present the polarization sensitive spectroscopic OCT system (PS-SOCT). The PS-SOCT combines the polarization sensitive analysis with time-frequency analysis. Unlike standard polarization sensitive OCT the PS-SOCT delivers spectral information about measured quantities e.g. tested object birefringence changes over the light spectra. This solution overcomes the limits of polarization sensitive analysis applied in standard PS-OCT. Based on spectral data obtained from PS-SOCT the exact value of birefringence can be calculated even for the objects that provide higher order of retardation. In this contribution the benefits of using the combination of time-frequency and polarization sensitive analysis are being expressed. Moreover, the PS-SOCT system features, as well as OCT measurement examples are presented.