Patent ID: 7360897

Claim:
A fundus examination apparatus, comprising: an illumination optical system which illuminates a fundus by fundus illumination light of circularly-polarized light; an imaging optical system which photographs a fundus image based on a polarization property of reflected illumination light reflected from the fundus by the fundus illumination light; and a picture signal processing device configured to process a signal output from the imaging optical system, wherein the imaging optical system includes: a phase plate array having a plurality of unit constitutional plates that are arranged in a matrix in a plane; each of the unit constitutional plates comprising four or more micro phase plates, each of the micro phase plates having a different advancing phase axis with respect to each other so as to change a phase state of the reflected illumination light; a polarizer which polarizes the reflected illumination light passing through the phase plate array into a predetermined polarization direction, and an image pickup device that includes a plurality of constitutional units arranged in a matrix in a plane; each of the constitutional units comprising four or more pixels corresponding to each of the micro phase plates, each of the pixels receiving the reflected illumination light that the polarization direction has uniformed in one direction by passing the polarizer, wherein the picture signal processing device includes a calculator which calculates Stokes' parameter of the reflected illumination light from the fundus based on an intensity of the reflected illumination light that the polarization direction has uniformed through the polarizer for each of the constitutional units and obtains an intensity ratio of a polarization component of partially polarized light with respect to the intensity of the reflected illumination light based on the calculation results of the Stokes' parameter in order to obtain a thickness of a bundle of nerve fibers of the fundus while minimizing an apparent thickness resulting from existence of a pigimented layer by correcting the Stokes' parameter with the ratio.