Dj. Donohue et al., NUMERICAL MODELING OF THE CORNEAS LAMELLAR STRUCTURE AND BIREFRINGENCE PROPERTIES, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science,and vision., 12(7), 1995, pp. 1425-1438
A model of the cornea's lamellar structure is proposed that is capable
of explaining experimental results obtained for the transmission of n
ormal-incidence polarized light through rabbit and bovine cornea. The
model consists of a large number of planar lamellae, each approximated
as a uniaxial birefringent layer, stacked one upon another with vario
us angular orientations. Polarized light transmission through the comp
osite system is modeled theoretically by use of the Jones matrix forma
lism. The light transmission is calculated numerically for a large num
ber of model lamellae arrangements, each generated from a statistical
description, and histograms are constructed of various properties of t
he light transmission, including the minimum and maximum cross-polariz
ed output intensities. It is demonstrated that various structural and
optical parameters of the lamellae arrangements of actual corneas may
be estimated by comparison of the calculations with detailed experimen
tal data. Certain characteristics of the histograms are identified tha
t permit a clear distinction between random and partially ordered syst
ems. Comparisons with previously published experimental data provide s
trong evidence that the lamellae orientations are not entirely random,
but rather a significant fraction are oriented in a fixed, preferred
direction.