Influence of particle size and concentration on the diffuse backscattering of polarized light from tissue phantoms and biological cell suspensions

• Published in: Applied optics (2004) Vol. 36; no. 1; p. 125
• Main Authors: Hielscher, A H, Mourant, J R, Bigio, I J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.01.1997
• ISSN: 1559-128X
• DOI: 10.1364/ao.36.000125

We present experimental results that show the spatial variations of the diffuse-backscattered intensity when linearly polarized light is incident upon highly scattering media. Experiments on polystyrene-sphere and Intralipid suspensions demonstrate that the radial and azimuthal variations of the observed pattern depend on the concentration, size, and anisotropy factor g of the particles that constitute the scattering medium. Measurements performed on biological-cell suspensions show the potential of this method for cell characterization.