Polarimetric accessory for colposcope
AssigneeThe United States of America, as represented by the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services
InventorsAmir Gandjbakhche, Victor Chernomordik, Moinuddin Hassan, Alexander Sviridov, Zachary Ulissi, Paul D. Smith, Albert C. Boccara
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Abstract
A polarization-based colposcopy apparatus includes a polarization exchanging beam splitter pair oriented so that s- and p-polarizations are exchanged. An optical flux from a specimen is directed through the pair, and orthogonal components thereof are alternately or selectively coupled to an array detector. The detected images are processed based on image correlations to reveal specimen structures.
Claims21
An apparatus, comprising:
- a binocular viewing head that defines a first imaging optical path and a second imaging optical path;
- and
- a polarization exchanging beam splitter pair (PEBSP), the PEBSP including a pair of non-polarizing beam splitters configured so that a first non-polarizing beam splitter is situated to reflect an s-component or a p-component of an incident optical flux and a second non-polarizing beam splitter situated to reflect the s-component and the p-component of the reflected incident optical flux at the first non-polarizing beam splitter as a p-component or an s-component, respectively, at the second non-polarizing beam splitter,
- a variable waveplate, and a polarizer situated in the second optical path and configured to selectively direct specimen imaging fluxes corresponding to a first polarization state and a second polarization state to an imaging optical system associated with the second optical path.
A method, comprising:
- obtaining at least a first specimen image and a second specimen image based on an optical flux received from an image through a polarization exchanging beam splitter pair (PEBSP), the PEBSP including a pair of non-polarizing beam splitters configured so that a first non-polarizing beam splitter is situated to reflect an s-component or a p-component of the optical flux and a second non-polarizing beam splitter is situated to reflect the s-component and the p-component of the reflected optical flux at the first non-polarizing beam splitter as a p-component or an s-component, respectively, at the second non-polarizing beam splitter, wherein the first and second specimen images are associated with different states of polarization;
- and
- processing the first image and the second image to identify polarization dependent image portions and produce an associated polarization based images.
An apparatus, comprising:
- an optical flux source configured to deliver an optical flux to a specimen in a selected state of polarization;
- an objective lens configured to form an image of the specimen based on the delivered optical flux;
- a polarization exchanging beam splitter pair (PEBSP) configured to receive the optical flux, the PEBSP including a pair of non-polarizing beam splitters configured so that a first non-polarizing beam splitter is situated to reflect an s-component or a p-component of the optical flux and a second non-polarizing beam splitter is situated to reflect the s-component and the p-component of the reflected optical flux at the first non-polarizing beam splitter as a p-component or an s-component, respectively, at the second non-polarizing beam splitter;
- a variable waveplate situated to receive the optical flux from the PEBSP and deliver the optical flux to a polarizer;
- an image sensor situated to receive the image;
- and
- an image processor configured to stores the received image as a recorded image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.