Patent ID: 8896833
Filing Date: 2014-11-25
Classification: A61B,G01J,G01N

Abstract:
1. A device for determining at least one piece of polarisation information for a measurement point of a target sample, said device comprising: a light source configured to emit a rectilinearly polarised incident light beam in a predefined direction, the incident light beam being intended to be reflected by the measurement point of the target sample as a reflected light beam, a calculation unit, at least one waveguide configured to guide the incident light beam towards the target sample and to output two orthogonal polarimetric components of the incident light beam, and configured to guide the reflected light beam towards photodetectors, and a polarisation rotator disposed to receive the two orthogonal polarimetric components of the incident light beam output from the waveguide, and configured to rotate the two orthogonal polarimetric components of the incident light beam after passage through the waveguide and to rotate the two orthogonal polarimetric components of the reflected light beam before passage through the waveguide, to compensate for the effect of the birefringence of the waveguide, and photodetectors measuring the reflected light beam and delivering to the calculation unit an electric signal representative of the polarimetric component of the reflected light beam oriented in the predefined direction, called a parallel signal, and an electric signal representative of the polarimetric component perpendicular to the polarimetric component of the reflected light beam oriented in the predefined direction, called an orthogonal signal, wherein the calculation unit selects a value of the parallel signal, the parallel signal varying over time or as a function of the wavelength, and the calculation unit calculates the degree of polarisation (DOP), based on the following formula: in which: