Light propagation in an anisotropically scattering medium

Scattering is the main phenomenon of light-matter interaction. In this thesis, we consider one specific case of light propagation in a material whose structure causes anisotropic optical scattering - transparent wood. As a substance with properties interesting for research in optics/photonics, this biocomposite material began to be used quite recently, even though it was initially developed for the study of the internal structure of wood a few decades ago. Besides the anisotropy, the structure has a hierarchal arrangement with features ranging from nanometers up to micrometer sizes, and demonstrates short and long-distance natural ordering which is neither perfect nor totally random. The main interest in transparent wood within the field of optics is due to its remarkable combination of unique structure and optical transparency. There has been much research done on light propagation in diffusive media and/or structurally ordered materials, and in this sense, transparent wood occupies an intermediate niche for investigation. Since transparent wood is a relatively new material, there is a lack of methods of reliable study of its properties. Although there have been some attempts to characterize the optical properties of transparent wood via transmittance and haze (for scattering properties), insufficient understanding of the physical processes behind light propagation within the substance, scattering in particular, leaves a gap in data interpretation for measured parameters and their correlation with the material structure. In this thesis, we present our efforts to fill this gap through means of a more detailed and physically justified description of light propagation in an anisotropically scattering medium. In order to familiarize readers with the subject, we provide a short summary of the structural features, fabrication technology and chemical composition of transparent wood. We discuss issues related to the conventionally applied approach of haze measuring as a characterization method of the scattering in such anisotropic materials as transparent wood. We demonstrate a certain limitation of the haze criterion applicability and instead, suggest a modified characterization routine and parameters, such as transport mean free path, and degree of anisotropic scattering, for estimation of scattering properties of the material. We also discuss the dependence of scattering efficiency on the polarization state of incident light. Due to polarization-dependent scat