Spectral Domain Polarization Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography at 1.55 urn: Novel Developments and Applications for Dynamic Studies in Materials Science

摘要

In this paper it is demonstrated, how research in optical coherence tomography (OCT) for biomedical diagnostics successfully triggered new developments in the field of mechanical material testing. With the help of a specifically designed, compact and robust spectral domain polarization sensitive OCT (SD-PS-OCT) setup, which is operating at 1.55 μm, dynamic investigations of technical materials - like bulk polymers and composite samples - can be performed under various conditions. Already by evaluating the speckle pattern of the standard SD-OCT images with advanced image processing methods, valuable information on the deformation and flow characteristics of samples subjected to tensile tests can be obtained. By additionally taking the birefringence properties into account, complementary knowledge on the evolvement of the internal stress situation is obtained in a spatially resolved way.