Perspectives of optical diagnosis with vector light beams (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

In turbid tissue-like scattering medium the conventional polarized light, scattered multiple number of times, is depolarized, and the depolarization rate depends strongly on the size and shape of scattering particles, as well as on the number of scattering events. In fact, the structure of light can be more complicated when the polarization of light across the laser beam can be radially or azimuthally polarized and carry orbital angular momentum. When these vector light beams, known as cylindrical vector beam (CVB) and Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams, propagates in turbid tissue-like scattering medium, either anisotropic or inhomogeneous, the spin or angular momentum are changed that leads to spin-orbit interaction. Such a spin-orbit interaction leads to the mutual influence of the polarization and the trajectory of the light propagation. We investigate the applicability of using CVB and LG beams for optical biopsy. In current presentation propagation of CVB and LG beams in anisotropic turbid tissue-like scattering media is considered in comparison to conventional Gaussian beams. We demonstrate that by applying CVB and LG beams the sensitivity of the conventional polarimetry-based approach is increased at least twice in comparison with the experiments utilizing ‘simple’ Gaussian polarized light. The results of the study suggest that there is a high potential in application of vector light beams in tissue diagnosis.