Imaging of polarization properties of human retina in vivo with phase resolved transversal PS-OCT

Recently, we developed a phase resolved polarization sensitive OCT system based on transversal scanning. This system was now improved and adapted for retinal imaging in vivo. We accelerated the image acquisition speed by a factor of 10 and adapted the system for light sources emitting at 820nm. The improved instrument records 1000 transversal lines per second. Two different scanning modes enable either the acquisition of high resolution B-scan images containing 1600x500 pixels in 500ms or the recording of 3D data sets by C-scan mode imaging. This allows acquiring a 3D-data set containing 1000x100x100 pixels in 10 seconds. We present polarization sensitive B-scan images and to the best of our knowledge, the first 3D-data sets of retardation and fast axis orientation of fovea and optic nerve head region in vivo. The polarizing and birefringence properties of different retinal layers: retinal pigment epithelium, Henle's fiber layer, and retinal nerve fiber layer are studied. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.