Polarization-sensitive imaging with simultaneous bright- and dark-field optical coherence tomography

We present a polarization-sensitive (PS) extension for bright-and dark-field (BRAD) optical coherence tomography imaging. Using a few-mode fiber detection scheme, the light backscattered at different angles is separated, and the BRAD images of tissue scattering are generated. A calibration method to correct for the fiber birefringence is proposed. Since particle scattering profiles are polarization dependent, a PS detection extends the capabilities for investigating the scattering properties of biological tissues. Both phantoms consisting of different-sized microparticles and a brain tissue specimen were imaged to validate the system performance and demonstrate the complementary image contrast. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.