A Monte Carlo study of penetration depth and sampling volume of polarized light in turbid media

Detection depth and sampling volume of polarized light in highly turbid, cylindrically-shaped samples are estimated using pathlength distributions calculated from a polarization-sensitive Monte Carlo model. Due to defined ranges of the polarized light pathlength distribution, the estimated penetration depth and the interrogated volume of the polarization-maintaining photon subpopulation are smaller than those of the whole collected photon population, the latter exhibiting a wider pathlength distribution resulting from multiple scattering. It is also demonstrated that the spatial interrogation extent of polarized light in turbid media is greatly affected by the experimental detection geometry. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.