Single-mode fiber based polarization sensitive swept source optical coherence tomography using alternating sweep polarizations

In comparison to standard optical coherence tomography (OCT), polarization sensitive OCT provides an additional image contrast revealing optical properties of tissue, which supports the differentiation of tissue and extents the diagnostic potential of OCT. In this study, a polarization contrast is obtained using a standard single-mode fiber based swept-source OCT-system with a buffered Fourier domain mode locked laser, where the wavelength sweeps are adjusted, in order to exhibit an alternating polarization. The sweep polarization is measured using a self-made high-speed polarimeter. This approach of utilizing a buffered laser source provides the advantage that a polarization contrast can be realized in standard OCT-systems without any complex extensions of the OCT-system. An imaging example illustrates the polarization contrast obtained from the alternating sweep polarization.