A method of simulating polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography based on a polarization-sensitive Monte Carlo program and a sphere cylinder birefringence model

摘要

In this paper, we present a new method to simulate the signal of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (for short, PS-OCT) by the use of the sphere cylinder birefringence Monte Carlo program developed by our laboratory. Using the program, we can simulate various turbid media based on different optical models and analyze the scattering and polarization information of the simulated media. The detecting area and angle range and the scattering times of the photons are three main conditions we can use to screen out the photons which contribute to the signal of PS-OCT, and in this paper, we study the effects of these three factors on simulation results using our program, and find that the scattering times of the photon is the main factor to affect the signal, and the detecting area and angle range are less important but necessary conditions. In order to test and verify the feasibility of our simulation, we use two methods as a reference. One is called Extended Huygens Fresnel (for short, EHF) method, which is based on electromagnetism theory and can describe the single scattering and multiple scattering of light. By comparison of the results obtained from EHF method and ours, we explore the screening regularities of the photons in the simulation. Meanwhile, we also compare our simulation with another polarization related simulation presented by a Russian group, and our experimental results. Both the comparisons find that our simulation is efficient for PS-OCT at the superficial depth range, and should be further corrected in order to simulate the signal of PS-OCT at deeper depth.