Two-dimensional and surface backscattering Mueller matrices of anisotropic sphere-cylinder scattering media: a quantitative study of influence from fibrous scatterers

We present both the two-dimensional backscattering point-illumination and surface-illumination Mueller matrices for the anisotropic sphere-cylinder scattering media. The experimental results of the microsphere-silk sample show that the Mueller matrix elements of an anisotropic scattering medium are different from those of an isotropic medium. Moreover, both the experiments and Monte Carlo simulations show that the directions of the fibrous scatterers have prominent effects on the Mueller matrix elements. As the fibrous samples rotate, the surface-illumination Mueller matrix measurement results for the m12, m21, m13, m31, m22, m23, m32, and m33 elements represent periodical variations. Experiments on skeletal muscle and porcine liver tissue samples confirm that the periodical changes for the surface-illumination Mueller matrix elements are closely related to the well aligned fibrous scatterers. The m22, m23, m32, and m33 elements are powerful tools for quantitative characterization of anisotropic scattering media, including biological tissues. (C) 2013 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers SPIE)