Changes in the structural organization of biological tissue can be indicative of disease. The ability to measure and associate changes in structural organization with disease-related cellular architecture has significant diagnostic value. Here we present a spectral imaging polarimeter to probe the local structural organization of tissue. The system is based on liquid crystal technology, and is comprised of two modules, a Stokes generator and a polarimeter. The Stokes generator uses a pair of Liquid Crystal Variable Retarders (LCVRs) to generate a set of Stokes vectors incident on a sample, while the polarimeter utilizes a separate pair of LCVRs to analyze the scattered Stokes vectors. Characterization of the system is in terms of a data reduction matrix that relates the polarimeter measurements to the incident Stokes vector. Calibration of the polarimeter (calculation of the elements of this data reduction matrix) is performed by presenting a series of known Stokes vectors to the device. The resulting over-determined system of equations is solved using the Singular Value Decomposition. We discuss the construction and calibration of the system.

Date Published: 24 February 2010
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 7566, Optics in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine IV, 756609 (24 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.842699

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7566:
Optics in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine IV
Sean J. Kirkpatrick; Ruikang Wang, Editor(s)