Yoshiaki YASUNO, Yasunori SUTOH, Shuichi MAKITA, Masahide ITOH and Toyohiko YATAGAI

Institute of Applied Physics, University of Tsukuba, Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8573, Japan

(Received February 12, 2003; Accepted May 16, 2003)

A spectral interferometric optical coherence tomography (OCT) system which has polarization sensitivity is developed. This system reduces the mechanical scanning dimension by employing the principle of spectral interferometry, and measures a two dimensional cross-sectional image of biological tissue with one dimensional mechanical scanning. Sixteen OCT images with different polarization conditions are measured, and two dimensional distributions of each element of the Muller matrix of a sample to be measured are calculated.

Key words: optical coherence tomography, biological tissue, spectral interferometry, birefringence, polarization