Temperature Dependence of a Depth-Encoded System for Polarization-Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography using a PM Fiber

With the aim of applying complex master/slave interferometry (CMSI) to polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) for birefringent tomographic measurements of biological tissue, we present the impact of temperature instability on an all-fiber-based depth-encoded PS-OCT system and the practicality of temperature control for birefringence measurements. In our PS-OCT system, two orthogonally polarized interrogating beams were separated to a depth of approximately 1 mm using a 5-meter long polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) as a passive delay unit, which is susceptible to temperature instability. The variation in resolution and delay due to temperature change of PMF were investigated. Furthermore, it is shown that tomographic birefringence can be measured under temperature-controlled operation utilizing the advantages of CMSI. We found that changes to the location of generated masks caused by an emerging temperature drift between the channels can be corrected with our presented characterization.