Abstract

That polarization effects in scattered light can yield useful information about biological material has been shown as early as 1976, when Bickel et al. announced a “new biophysical tool".[1] Surprisingly, very few authors have used this new tool. Only a couple of studies exist that are concerned with polarization of forward scattered and transmitted light. [2-4] However, there are many biomedical applications where only backward scattered light is available for diagnostics, as, for example, in most endoscopic procedures. Recently Wang et al. addressed this issue for the first time by reporting angular variations of intensity in the diffuse- backscattered polarized light around the polarized-light input point.[5] In this study we investigate in detail the effects of particle sizes and concentration on the diffuse backscattering of linearly polarized light. We demonstrate that different particle size and concentrations lead to differences in the spatial pattern of backscattered light when viewed through a polarizer. These differences can be explained by Rayleigh and Mie theory, and can be used to characterize biomedical cells and tissues.

© 1996 Optical Society of America