Near-infrared Deep Imaging of Biological Phantom by Polarization Parametric Imaging

In optical imaging of biological tissues, surface reflection is a serious issue in many cases, while near-infrared (NIR) light can be used for deep imaging of biological tissues due to its strong tissue penetration ability and weaker light scattering in tissues. In this article, a method based on parametric imaging of the polarization status of reflected or transmitted light from biological tissues in the NIR spectrum was proposed. By modulating the polarization states of the NIR illumination source, recording the images of the samples, the far-field variation of the pixel intensity of recorded images was fitted to a theoretical model, and a series of polarization parametric images were obtained. These images describe the relation between the polarization status of the reflected or transmitted light and the properties of the samples. A tissue phantom with deep buried test target was imaged successfully. This method can provide a useful detection method for the deep imaging of biomedical tissues.