Determination of local polarization properties of biological samples in the presence of diattenuation by use of Mueller optical coherence tomography.

A unique feature of polarization-sensitive Mueller optical coherence tomography is that, by measuring Jones or Mueller matrices, it can reveal the complete polarization properties of biological samples, even in the presence of diattenuation. We map local polarization properties for the first time to our knowledge by using polar decomposition in combination with least-squares fitting to differentiate measured integrated Jones matrices with respect to depth. We also introduce the new concept of dual attenuation coefficients to characterize diattenuation per unit infinitesimal length in tissues. We experimentally verify the algorithm using measurements of a section of porcine tendon and the septum of a rat heart.