Stokes polarization imaging applied for monitoring dynamic tissue optical clearing

Jiawei Song; Nan Zeng; Wei Guo; Jun Guo; Hui Ma

doi:10.1364/BOE.426653

Stokes polarization imaging applied for monitoring dynamic tissue optical clearing

Biomed Opt Express. 2021 Jul 13;12(8):4821-4836. doi: 10.1364/BOE.426653. eCollection 2021 Aug 1.

Authors

Jiawei Song^{1

2}, Nan Zeng^{1

3}, Wei Guo^{1

4}, Jun Guo¹, Hui Ma^{1

2

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Research Center of Polarization Imaging and Measurement Engineering Technology, Shenzhen Key Laboratory for Minimal Invasive Medical Technologies, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China.
² Tsinghua University, Department of Physics, 1 Tsinghua Yuan, Beijing 100084, China.
³ zengnan@sz.tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁴ Tsinghua University, Department of Biomedical Engineering, 1 Tsinghua Yuan, Beijing 100084, China.
⁵ Center for Precision Medicine and Healthcare, Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Shenzhen, 518071, China.
⁶ mahui@tsinghua.edu.cn.

Abstract

We propose a continuous Stokes imaging system with a refresh rate of several seconds, instead of a traditional Mueller measurement setup, to quickly track the microstructural changes of tissues during the optical clearing process. The effectiveness of this fast Stokes imaging applied in monitoring the dynamic process is first validated by three designed experiments with a polarization state that changes continuously and rapidly, and is further confirmed by gradual changes in polarization image contrast and resolution with clearing. By comparison with experiments from different tissue samples with the same agent, the fast Stokes response curve can improve the analysis ability of photon polarization behavior connected with the complicated changes of tissue characteristics.