Precision analysis in polarization-resolved second harmonic generation microscopy.

Polarization-resolved second harmonic generation (PSHG) imaging microscopy allows one to provide information such as anisotropy parameters and molecule orientation. We analyze the precision of parameter estimation for samples with cylindrical symmetry and a Gaussian additive noise model. We introduce improvements of existing techniques that can be useful to get rapid acquisition and processing of PSHG images, and we discuss the influence of photon noise. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America