The application of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT)creates new possibilities for biomedical imaging. In this work, we present anumerical simulation of the signal from a PS-OCT interferometer. We explore thepossibility to retrieve information concerning the optical birefringenceproperties of multiple layered tissues from the depth-resolved PS-OCTinterferometric signal in the presence of strong elastic light scattering. Oursimulation is based on a Monte Carlo algorithm for the propagation of polarizedlight in a birefringent multiple scattering medium. Confocal and time-gateddetection are also included. To describe the polarization state of light, we usethe Jones formalism, which reduces the calculation time compared with the fullStokes-Müller formalism. To analyse the polarization state of the partiallypolarized back-scattered light, we applied a standard method using the Stokesvector, which is derived from the Jones vector. In this work, we examined theStokes vector variations with depth for different tissue types. The oscillationsof the Stokes vector are clearly demonstrated in the case of a uniformbirefringent medium. We also investigated a two-layered tissue with a differentbirefringence of each layer. The Stokes vector variation with depth is comparedto the uniform case and used to assess the depth-sensitivity of PS-OCT. Oursimulation results are also compared with published experimental results ofother groups
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