Polarimetric Mueller matrix imaging in multiply scattering inhomogeneous birefringent media

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Light provides us with much useful information about our surroundings. In addition to its wavelength (colour) and intensity, another useful property of an optical beam is its polarization state, or the orientation of the electric field vector perpendicular to the propagation direction. When light interacts with an object, its polarization state will be changed. Hence the properties of the object can be obtained by measuring this change. Here, we propose to extend our research into polarized light interactions with turbid materials. The long-term goal of the research is to perform polarized light assessment of biological tissues. The numerous deflections experienced by the light in such materials will significantly scramble its polarization. However, we and others have shown that a surprising amount of useful polarization information can be still retained upon such multiple scattering. The proposed methodology will thus optimize measurements and analysis of polarization effects in turbid media. These methods can then be used to characterize turbid systems such as planetary atmospheres, biological tissues, or amorphous semiconductors. It is also proposed to investigate the effects of the medium "birefringence". This refers to the structural asymmetry / microarchitectural organization of some materials, which causes them to interact with polarized light in distinctive ways. Polarization measurements have long been used in TRANSPARENT media or thin materials (thin films) to probe the details of its structure. The proposed work is novel in its intent to quantify these structural asymmetries in optically thick TURBID media. Significance in the biomedical arena stems from the asymmetric nature of many biological tissues, and microstructural rearrangements as a result of disease progression or treatments. Our polarized light approach can then report on tissue functional status and tissue viability in urology (bladder wall anisotropy, structure-function relationship in obstructed bladder disease), cardiology (heart muscle remodelling following infarct and stem-cell regenerative therapies) and oncology (breast cancer metastatic spread along anisotropic routes in the tumour extracellular matrix).