Structural characterization of collagen using polarization-resolved second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy

Abstract

Abstract Second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy is an effective analytical tool for a detailed investigation of the microscopic structure of non-centrosymmetric molecules. We developed a four-channel photon-counting-based Stokes polarimeter integrated to the SHG microscope for spatial characterization of polarization effects in the SH signal. We implemented Stokes-vector-based polarization-resolved SHG imaging to perform quantitative polarimetry, with a view to applications in biomedicine, which can measure the full polarization state of the SH light. In this work, we describe the application of a Stokes-vector-based four-channel photon counting SHG microscope to determine the molecular interpretation of the SH light from collagen in normal, scar, and keloid tissue.