Swept source cross-polarized optical coherence tomography for any input polarized light

Cross polarized optical coherence tomography (OCT) offers enhanced contrast in certain pathological conditions. Traditional cross-polarized OCT systems require a defined input polarization and thus require several polarization controlling elements increasing the overall complexity of the system. Our proposed system requires a single quarter wave plate as a polarization controller thus simplifying the system significantly. The majority of cross-polarized OCT systems are spectrometer based, which suffers from slow speed and low signal to noise ratio. In this work, we present a swept source based cross-polarized OCT system that works for any input polarization state. The system was tested against known birefringent materials such as quarter wave plate. Furthermore, biological samples such as finger, nail and chicken breast were imaged to demonstrate the potential of our technique. (paper)