Patent ID: 6208415
Filing Date: 2001-03-27
Classification: G01B,G01N

Abstract:
An apparatus for polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography of a sample characterized by optical birefringence comprising:an interferometer having a source arm, a reference arm, a sample arm and a detector arm;a source of at least partially coherent polarized light coupled to said source arm, said partially coherent polarized light being characterized by a well defined polarization state;a polarization modulator, wherein polarization modulated light is returned to said detector arm from said reference arm and wherein polarization modulated light is incident on said sample and arbitrarily polarized light is returned to said detector arm from said sample arm according to sample birefringence, said returned light from said reference arm and sample arm interfering in said detector arm to form polarization interference fringes; anda polarization demodulator to demodulate said polarization interference fringes to generate a complete polarization state description of said backscattered light from said sample by preserving phase relationships between orthogonal components of said polarization interference fringes formed from backscattered light from said sample and from said reference arm.