Depolarization Measurement through a Single-Mode Fiber-Based Endoscope for Full Mueller Endoscopic Polarimetric Imaging

Abstract

Coupled to endoscopic techniques, Mueller polarimetry has been proven to be promising for early detection of certain diseases which affect biological tissues of inner organs. However, the depolarization power which is one of the most informative polarimetric characteristics cannot be directly measured through a fiber endoscope. For evaluating this quantity, we propose a method based on the Lu–Chipman decomposition of the averaged sum of the Mueller matrices of neighboring pixels. The principle is well supported by numerical simulations. Depolarization powers of Spectralon and of different areas of a biological sample are also successfully evaluated.

Keywords

• Mueller polarimetry
• depolarization
• optical fibers
• single-mode fiber
• endoscopy