Monte Carlo simulation of scattered circularly polarized light in biological tissues for detection technique of abnormal tissues using spin-polarized light emitting diodes

The circular polarization of light scattered by biological tissues provides valuable information and has been considered as a powerful tool for the diagnosis of tumor tissue. We propose a non-staining, non-invasive and in vivo cancer diagnosis technique using an endoscope equipped with circularly polarized LEDs (spin-LEDs). We studied the scattering process of the circularly polarized light against cell nuclei in pseudo-healthy and cancerous tissues using the existing Monte Carlo method. The calculation results indicate that the resultant circular polarizations of light scattered in pseudo tissues shows a clear difference in a wide range of detection angles, and the sampling depth depends on those detection angles. The structure of the endoscope probe comprising spin-LEDs is designed based on the calculation results, providing structural and depth information regarding biological tissues simultaneously. (C) 2020 The Japan Society of Applied Physics