<oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd">
  <dc:rights>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</dc:rights>
  <dc:description xml:lang="eng">Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images are prone to image artifacts due to the birefringence of the sample or the optical system when a polarized light source is used for imaging. These artifacts can lead to degraded image quality and diagnostic information.We aim to mitigate these birefringence-related artifacts in OCT images by adding a depolarizer module in the reference arm of the interferometer.We investigated different configurations of liquid crystal patterned retarders as pseudo-depolarizers in the reference arm of OCT setups. We identified the most effective depolarization module layout for polarization artifact suppression for a spectral-domain OCT system based on a Michelson and a Mach-Zehnder interferometer.The performance of our approach was demonstrated in an achromatic quarter-wave plate allowing the selection of a variety of sample polarization states. A substantial improvement of the OCT signal magnitude was observed after placing the optimal depolarizer configuration, reducing the cross-polarization artifact from 5.7 to 1.8 dB and from 8.0 to 1.0 dB below the co-polarized signal for the fiber-based Michelson and Mach-Zehnder setup, respectively. An imaging experiment in the birefringent scleral tissue of a post-mortem alpine marmot eye and a mouse tail specimen further showcased a significant improvement in the detected signal intensity and an enhanced OCT image quality followed by a drastic elimination of the birefringence-related artifacts.Our study presents a simple yet cost-effective technique to mitigate birefringence-related artifacts in OCT imaging. This method can be readily implemented in existing OCT technology and improve the effectiveness of various OCT imaging applications in biomedicine.</dc:description>
  <dc:date>2024</dc:date>
  <dc:language>eng</dc:language>
  <dc:type xml:lang="eng">Text</dc:type>
  <dc:type xml:lang="eng">journal article</dc:type>
  <dc:rights xml:lang="eng">© 2024 The Authors</dc:rights>
  <dc:rights xml:lang="eng">open access</dc:rights>
  <dc:publisher>Spie</dc:publisher>
  <dc:title xml:lang="eng">Polarization-insensitive optical coherence tomography using pseudo-depolarized reference light for mitigating birefringence-related image artifacts</dc:title>
  <dc:creator>Maria Varaka</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Conrad W. Merkle</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Lucas May</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Félix Fanjul-Vélez</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Sybren Worm</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Marco Augustin</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Hsiang-Chieh Lee</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Adelheid Wöhrer</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Martin Glösmann</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Bernhard Baumann</dc:creator>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Tomography, Optical Coherence Methods</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Tomography, Optical Coherence Instrumentation</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Birefringence</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Artifacts</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Animals</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Mice</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Equipment Design</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Interferometry Methods</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Interferometry Instrumentation</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Image Processing, Computer-Assisted Methods</dc:subject>
  <dc:format>application/pdf</dc:format>
  <dc:source xml:lang="eng">Journal of Biomedical Optics</dc:source>
  <dc:type xml:lang="deu">Text</dc:type>
  <dc:type xml:lang="deu">Wissenschaftlicher Artikel</dc:type>
  <dc:identifier>doi:10.1117/1.JBO.29.11.116001</dc:identifier>
  <dc:identifier>https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:3859</dc:identifier>
</oai_dc:dc>