Development of a noninvasive corneal birefringence compensated glucose sensing polarimeter

In the recent past, optical polarimetry has been shown as a potential method for noninvasive physiologic glucose sensing in the eye. Although the necessary sensitivity and accuracy have been demonstrated experimentally through in vitro studies using a range of media from simplistic glucose doped-water to more complex media such as aqueous humor, the main problem currently hindering long-term in vivo measurements is corneal birefringence coupled with motion artifact. This is due to the inability to distinguish E-field rotation due to glucose from the effects of time varying corneal birefringence. In this investigation, the effect of corneal birefringence will be discussed and a potential method to overcome this problem will be presented with supporting results.