Backscattered speckle size as a function of polarization:: influence of particle-size and -concentration

This report about backscattering measurements of the speckle produced by strongly-scattering liquid media shows that the size of the backscattered speckle depends on scattering and anisotropy coefficients. These measurements were aimed at assessing the effects of polarization characteristics of the incident laser beam and of the scattered light on speckle size. The samples under study consisted of monodisperse polystyrene microspheres in solutions, mixtures of different sized-microspheres,milk, blood and pig skin. Such measurements of speckle size in polarization give information on strongly scattering media, allow their discrimination and enable one to characterize the undergone changes. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America