Work

Second Harmonic Generation of Unpolarized Light

Year: 2017

Type: article

Abstract: A Mueller tensor mathematical framework was applied for predicting and interpreting the second harmonic generation (SHG) produced with an unpolarized fundamental beam. In deep tissue imaging through SHG and multiphoton fluorescence, partial or complete depolarization of the incident light complicates polarization analysis. The proposed framework has the distinct advantage of seamlessly merging the purely polarized theory based on the Jones or Cartesian susceptibility tensors with a more general Mueller tensor framework capable of handling partial depolarized fundamental and/or SHG produced. The predictions of the model are in excellent agreement with experimental measurements of z-cut quartz and mouse tail tendon obtained with polarized and depolarized incident light. The polarization-dependent SHG produced with unpolarized fundamental allowed determination of collagen fiber orientation in agreement with orthogonal methods based on image analysis. This method has the distinct advantage of being immune to birefringence or depolarization of the fundamental beam for structural analysis of tissues.

Source: Physical Review Letters

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.119.193901

Authors: Changqin Ding, James R. W. Ulcickas, Fengyuan Deng, Garth J. Simpson

Institution: Purdue University West Lafayette

Language: English

Topic: Optical Polarization and Ellipsometry

Subfield: Biomedical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Awards: Ultrafast Nonlinear Optical Approaches toward High-Throughput Membrane Protein Na, Nonlinear Optical Imaging for Guiding Protein Structure Determination