Effect of the skin optical anisotropy on the polarization state of transmitted light with initial linear polarization

Abstract

The results of experimental study of influence of macroscopic optical anisotropy and scattering properties of tissue samples on their optical polarization characteristics, which can be measured in simple polarirnetric experiment, are presented. In-vitro samples of animal tissue (rat skin) were examined in these experiments. The experimental technique used is based on the detection of the intensities of the co- and cross-polarized components of the light transmitted through the scattered medium, which is rotated between two polarizes. It is shown that the whole rat skin has macroscopic optical birefringence with the average difference ofrefractive indices Δn ~ 0.00024.