Wide-Field Stokes Polarimetric Microscopy for Second Harmonic Generation Imaging

We employ wide-field second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy together with nonlinear Stokes polarimetry for quick ultrastructural investigation of large sample areas (700 μm x 700 μm ) in thin histology sections. The Stokes vector components for SHG are obtained from the polarimetric measurements with incident and outgoing linear and circular polarization states. The Stokes components are used to construct the images of polarimetric parameters and deduce the sample maps of achiral and chiral nonlinear susceptibility tensor components ratios and cylindrical axis orientation in fibrillar materials. The imaged histology sections with polarimetric wide-field SHG microscopy provide large area maps of ultrastructural information about the collagenous tissue, which can be used for rapid histology investigations.