Reciprocal polarization imaging of optical activity in reflection

Abstract

We present reciprocal polarization imaging for the optical activity of chiral media in reflection geometry. The method is based on the reciprocal polar decomposition of backscattering Mueller matrices accounting for the reciprocity of light waves in forward and backward scattering paths. Anisotropic depolarization is introduced to gain sensitivity to optical activity in backscattering. Experiments with glucose solutions show that while the Lu–Chipman decomposition of the backscattering Mueller matrices produces erroneous results, reciprocal polarization imaging correctly retrieves the optical activity of chiral media. The recovered optical rotation agrees with that obtained in the forward geometry and increases linearly with the concentration and thickness of the chiral media. The potential for in vivo glucose monitoring based on optical activity sensing using reciprocal polarization imaging is then discussed.