Characterization of Mean Absorbance of Anisotropic Turbid Media Using Stokes-Mueller Matrix Polarimetry Approach

A Mueller matrix polarimetry was designed to extract the mean absorbance of an anisotropic turbid media using an ink solution diluted with lipoplus as the sample for testing. The experimental results showed that the mean absorbance of ink solution with 2% lipoplus increases linearly with increasing ink concentration, and the other anisotropic optical parameters extracted by two decoupling algorithms were also in good agreements. As a result, the slope of 0.132 (mean absorbance/ink concentration) was found in an ink solution with 2% lipoplus within a 2 mm width of a cuvette. The corresponding average deviation of mean absorbance is 0.77%. Alternatively, a simulation of a Mueller matrix polarimetry was successfully demonstrated using LighTools to extract the mean absorbance based on a new methodology. In addition to extracting anisotropic parameters such as linear birefringence, linear dichroism, optical rotation, circular dichroism, and depolarization index using a typical Mueller matrix polarimetry system, the present study proposes a new methodology for determining the mean absorbance of anisotropic turbid media without scattering effects after subtracting the effective Mueller matrix of depolarization.