Patent ID: 7728985

Claim:
A polarization sensitive common path optical coherence reflectometer comprising: a source of optical radiation; a converting device optically coupled with the source of optical radiation, the converting device configured to produce at least two cross-polarized replicas of the optical radiation incoming from the source of optical radiation, propagating therethrough with a predetermined optical path length difference; a delivering device that delivers an optical radiation beam including the at least two cross-polarized replicas to an associated sample, the delivering device including a proximal part and a distal part, the distal part of the delivering device including a polarization insensitive reference reflector, the delivering device being further configured to produce a combined optical radiation representative of an optical radiation having returned from an associated sample, the combined optical radiation being a combination of an optical radiation having returned from an associated sample and of an optical radiation reflected from the reference reflector; a directional element optically coupled with the converting device and optically coupled with the proximal part of the delivering device, the directional element being configured to direct optical radiation to the delivering device; and an optoelectronic selecting device optically coupled with the directional element, the optoelectronic selecting device including an optical device optically coupled with an optoelectronic registering device; wherein the optical device is configured to split the combined optical radiation, incoming from the delivering device through the directional element, into at least two parts of the optical radiation propagating therethrough with a preset optical path length difference, and further recombining the at least two parts of the optical radiation, and wherein the optoelectronic registering device is positioned to receive the recombined optical radiation from the optical device; and wherein the optoelectronic selecting device is configured to select at least one of the following: a cross-polarized component of the combined optical radiation representative of an optical radiation having returned from an associated sample, and a parallel-polarized component of the combined optical radiation representative of an optical radiation having returned from an associated sample, subject to the preset optical path length difference for the at least two portions of the optical radiation propagating through the optical device.