Spatio-temporal depolarization patterns from sub-ps reflectance measurements

This study investigates the time-domain depolarization of scattered light in turbid media for characterizing properties down to single or few-scattering events, with applications in material quality analysis and diagnostics in biological media. Experimental results on the spatio-temporal evolution of the degree of linear polarization of light are presented. A sub-ps resolution optical-gating imaging setup captures the fast depolarization dynamics. By collecting two orthogonal polarization states, the method non-invasively characterizes the depolarization length and single-scattering properties. The technique is validated on highly monodisperse polystyrene nanospheres dispersions and tested on more complex materials, like biological samples.