Depth probing of diffuse tissues controlled with elliptically polarized light

Simon Rehn (1) , Anne Planat-Chrétien (2) , Michel Berger (2) , Jean-Marc Dinten (2) , Carole Deumié (1) , Anabela da Silva (1)

1 DiMABio - DiMABio
2 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information

Polarization gating is a popular technique in biomedical optics. It is widely used to inspect the surface of the tissues (under colinear or cocircular detection) or instead to probe the volume (cross-linear detection), without information on the probed depth. Elliptical polarization is introduced to explore the possibility of probing diffuse tissues at selective depths. A thorough Monte Carlo simulation study shows complete correlation between the probed depths and the ellipticity of the polarized light, for a medium with known optical properties. Within a wide range of optical parameters, a linear relation between the backscattered intensity and the depth extension of the probed volume was found whatever the polarization used, but with a controlled extension depending on the ellipticity.

Mots clés: light propagation in tissues; turbid media; medical and biological imaging; polarimetric imaging

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Simon Rehn, Anne Planat-Chrétien, Michel Berger, Jean-Marc Dinten, Carole Deumié, et al.. Depth probing of diffuse tissues controlled with elliptically polarized light. Journal of Biomedical Optics, 2013, 18 (1), pp.016007. ⟨10.1117/1.JBO.18.1.016007⟩. ⟨hal-00835407⟩