Light backscattering polarization patterns from turbid media: theory and experiment

We present both experimental measurements and Monte-Carlo-based simulations of the diffusely backscattered intensity patterns that arise from illumina ting a turbid medium with a polarized laser beam. It is rigorously shown th at, because of axial symmetry of the system, only seven elements of the eff ective backscattering Mueller matrix are independent. A new numerical metho d that allows simultaneous calculation of all 16 elements of the two-dimens ional Mueller matrix is used. To validate our method we compared calculatio ns to measurements from a turbid medium that consisted of polystyrene spher es of different sizes and concentrations in deionized water. The experiment al and numerical results are in excellent agreement. (C) 1999 Optical Socie ty of America.