Analysis of the polarization dependence of multiple backscattering light from red blood cells

The polarization dependence of multiply backscattered light from suspensions of red blood cells diluted with saline and one with additional salt are analyzed. To investigate the polarization dependence, the backscattering Mueller matrices of suspensions are obtained from 36 spatially distributed images of backscattered light intensity with different combinations of incident polarizations and detection analyzers. The spatial dependence of the degree of polarization of backscattering for linearly and circularly polarized incident light are analyzed with the Mueller matrices. To compare the degree of polarization numerically, the relationship between the degree of polarization and the normalized positions on the suspensions by reduced mean scattering free paths are investigated. The results show that the decay of degree of polarization along the distance from the incident point are almost same with or without additional salt when linearly polarized incident light is used, while different properties are observed with circularly polarized incident light.