Multiple scattering of polarized light in a turbid medium

Transillumination of highly scattering media by polarized light

“…For linearly polarized light , the role of one or the other mechanism depends on the relative refractive index of the scatterers, their size and shape. As a rule, the geometrical mechanism can be either dominant or as important as the dynamical mechanism of depolarization [38][39][40][41]46].…”

“…In the first approximation, neglecting the elements proportional to a (2,3) − and b ± , we obtain three independent equations. These equations describe the propagation of the basic polarization modes [38][39][40][41].…”

“…we arrive at the following transfer equation for the basic mode of linear polarization W [38][39][40][41]:…”

“…Therefore the equations for the basic modes can be transformed within the small-angle approximation (see, e.g., [38,39,41]). …”

“…Contrary to these works, we present a simple analytical theory that makes possible semi-quantitative describing the image characteristics and gives an insight into their dependence on optical parameters of the medium. Our approach is based on the basic mode approximation [38][39][40][41] in the vector radiative transfer equation. The results obtained take into account the contribution from the polarized snake-photons of the output signal, and enable us to reproduce experimental data on the polarizationgated transillumination of tissue-like media.…”