Do different turbid media with matched bulk optical properties also exhibit similar polarization properties?

Abstract

We here investigate polarimetric behavior of thick samples of porcine liver, Intralipid, and microsphere-based tissue phantoms whose absorption and scattering properties are matched. Using polarized light we measured reflection mode Mueller matrices and derived linear/circular/total depolarization rates, based on polar decomposition. According to our results, phantoms exhibit greater depolarization rates in the backscattering geometry than the liver sample. The enhanced tissue polarization preservation differs from previous reports of polarimetric transmission studies, with the likely cause of this difference being the angular dependence of the single-scattering phase function. Also, Intralipid approximated polarimetric liver behavior well, whereas the polystyrene phantoms did not.