Polarized Light Microscopy Based On Mueller Matrix and its Applications on Biomedical Studies

Polarized light microscopy is widely used in observation of optical anisotropic characteristics of samples. It has been applied to the studies in many fields, such as the geology of rocks and minerals, analysis of mural pigment, inspection of textiles, and detection of biological tissues. In biomedical studies, polarized light microscopy can provide rich micro structural information, which can be useful for the detection of abnormal tissues. However, the orientation distribution of anisotropic samples can influence the polarization measurement. Recently, we designed a new type of polarized light microscopy based on Mueller matrix imaging method. In this microscopy all the elements of the Mueller matrix are simultaneously determined from the analysis in the frequency domain of the time-dependent intensity of the light beam at every pixel of the camera. The variations in intensity are created by the two compensators continuously rotating at different angular frequencies. Through the subsequent transformation processing of the received polarization image, we can reduce the influence of sample orientation on polarization measurement and obtain the micro structural information more effectively. With the advantages of simple structure, rapid measurement and high precision, polarized light microscopy based on Mueller matrix shows a good development prospect.