Abstract

A light pulse propagating in a highly scattering medium experiences multiple scattering lossing coherence and polarization and leading to a much broader temporal profile.^1-4 In this work we measure the degree of polarization of linearly polarized laser pulses emerging after propagation in polystyrene microsphere solutions or human breast tissues. The temporal profiles of the parallel and perpendicular polarization components of the emerging light pulses differ for over 100 ps following the ballistic component. These results demonstrate that polarization can be used for time-gating the early-arriving component of the output pulse with gate time duration of ≈100 ps.

© 1996 Optical Society of America