Abstract

The scattering of polarized light from a multilayered scattering medium is investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. The polarization and spatial properties of the emerging light are used to perform tissue localisation in order to extract the physical and optical properties of the layered medium. The polarization technique is enhanced using linearly and circularly polarized illumination to probe different depths. Absorption and layer thickness is varied and it is demonstrated that the determination of these values is aided by the inclusion of polarization information to allow localisation of different volumes within the sample. Potential applications of these techniques are burn depth and melanoma thickness measurement.

© 2001 OSA/SPIE