Imaging of biological tissues with optical coherence tomography system using Jones-Mueller calculus

The polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (OCT) system provides useful informations about the biological tissues. The exact tissue parameters measurement and comparison predicts about the malignant and normal tissues. The degree of polarization changes with the depth of tissue samples. We have established the analytical modeling with Jones-Mueller matrix for imaging technique, which experimentally extract the birefringence, depolarization, absorption and scattering information of tissues. The Jones matrix of thermally treated porcine tendon showed a reduction of birefringence from thermal damage. The Jones matrices of porcine skin and bovine cartilage also revealed that the density and orientation of the collagen fibers in porcine skin and bovine cartilage are not distributed as uniformly as in porcine tendon. Birefringence is sensitive to changes in tissue because it is based on phase contrast.