Enhanced optical rotation and diminished depolarization in diffusive scattering from a chiral liquid

Methodology for examining polarized light interactions with tissues and tissuelike media in the exact backscattering direction

“…This has been utilized extensively in transparent materials ͑such as dilute protein suspensions͒ in polarization measurements of the concentration of chiral molecules. 17 The effect of chiral molecules on polarized light propagation in multiply scattering media has been studied, 12,14,18,19 with an important finding that they reduce the rate of light depolarization.…”

“…With respect to the latter variable, it has been shown that for sufficiently dense optical media, the emergent light is completely depolarized. [12][13][14] However, this may be different in one particular direction, that at 180°to the incident beam, [6][7][8][9][10][11]15,16 and one of the goals of the present study is to quantify the polarization behavior of optically thick biological media in this geometry.…”

“…[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] A typical experiment entails launching a known polarization state in light into a turbid sample and measuring the polarization properties of the remitted light. The detected signal depends on many variables, including the number and nature of scattering events, the incident polarization state, and the detection geometry.…”

Polarization Imaging

“…There is much current interest in chiral systems for which standard transmission methods are not appropriate, as, for example, chiral thin films, strongly absorbing chiral materials, inhomogeneous chiral media, and chiral materials with surface roughness [83].…”

Specular optical activity of achiral metasurfaces

“…crystals of quartz or cinnabar, or solutions of 3D-chiral molecules like sugar or proteins. It is much less well-known that polarization rotation also occurs for reflection from chiral materials [1-3] and diffusive scattering from chiral liquids [4]. Just as conventional polarization rotation (transmission circular birefringence) is usually accompanied by different levels of transmission for right-handed and left-handed circularly polarized waves (transmission circular dichroism), polarization rotation in reflection (specular circular birefringence) also goes along with a difference in reflectivity levels for waves of opposite handedness (specular circular dichroism), which was observed, for example, for solutions of camphorquinone [5] and proteins [6] as well as thin films of chiral polyfluorene [7].…”