Full-field quantitative phase and polarisation-resolved imaging through an optical fibre bundle

George S. D. Gordon, James Joseph, Travis Sawyer, Alexander J. Macfaden, Calum Williams, Timothy D. Wilkinson (Lead / Corresponding author), Sarah E. Bohndiek (Lead / Corresponding author)

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)
79 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Flexible optical fibres, used in conventional medical endoscopy and industrial inspection, scramble phase and polarisation information, restricting users to amplitude-only imaging. Here, we exploit the near-diagonality of the multi-core fibre (MCF) transmission matrix in a parallelised fibre characterisation architecture, enabling accurate imaging of quantitative phase (error <0.3 rad) and polarisation-resolved (errors <10%) properties. We first demonstrate accurate recovery of optical amplitude and phase in two polarisations through the MCF by measuring and inverting the transmission matrix, and then present a robust Bayesian inference approach to resolving 5 polarimetric properties of samples. Our method produces high-resolution (9.0±2.6µm amplitude, phase; 36.0±10.4µm polarimetric) full-field images at working distances up to 1mm over a field-of-view up to 750×750µm2 using an MCF with potential for flexible operation. We demonstrate the potential of using quantitative phase for computational image focusing and polarisation-resolved properties in imaging birefringence.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)23929-23947
Number of pages19
JournalOptics Express
Volume27
Issue number17
Early online date6 Aug 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Aug 2019

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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