Optical Polarization in Biomedical Applications

The second edition of the book published by Springer in 2006, Optical Polarization in Biomedical Applications concerns the optical methods exploring a unique feature of light —its polarization—for quantitative tissue characterization. The new edition will introduce new topics and expand on existing, cutting-edge developments in this field. Particular attention is paid to recent theoretical and instrumental advances in Mueller polarimetry and their potential clinical applications, a discussion of the principles and concepts of optical tissue clearing, orbital angular momentum, and quantum entangled photons in tissue polarization optics, polarization encoding and symbolic mapping of DNA sequences, and machine learning for pathology signature extraction. Some polarization-sensitive optical methods have already found clinical application, while others are still in the research phase but could become breakthrough technologies in various medical fields in the near future. Recent developments in Stokes-Muller polarimetry have led to extensive ex vivo and in vivo studies of various tissues. Important advances have been made in the field of matrix Mueller algebra for post-processing of diagnostic data, in the extension of the polarization Monte Carlo method to the study of scattering anisotropic media for the purpose of simulating the interaction of polarized light with tissue, and in the search for optimal optical markers for certain types of pathologies. These results are of interest to optical engineers, researchers, students, and clinicians seeking new, revolutionary approaches to solving diagnostic problems by assessing the presence of microstructural features to determine tissue integrity and in the development of new polarimetric technologies.