The effect of preservation of the residual polarization of backscattered light in the case of multiply scattered disordered media illumination by a linearly polarized plane wave is examined using the path-integral approach and Monte Carlo simulation. Disordered ensembles of non-interacting dielectric particles are considered as the model of scattering media. The influence of the anisotropy parameter of the scattering system on the degree of residual polarization is analysed. Experimental results obtained for various scattering systems at different wavelengths of illuminating light are in satisfactory agreement with the results of theoretical analysis and Monte Carlo simulation. The dependence of statistical properties of the polarization states of backscattered field partial components, such as probability distributions of ellipticity, on the anisotropy parameter is studied.

This work is directed to the investigation of the scope of the technique of laser polarimetry and polarization spectrometry of oncological changes of the human prostate tissue under the conditions of multiple scattering. It was shown that the third statistic moment in the intensity distribution proved to be the most sensitive to pathological changes in orientation structure. Its value in the intensity distribution of polarization image I (0 - 90) of oncologically changed tissue is 21 times higher if compared with the similar statistic parameter of the intensity distribution of the healthy tissue. The results of studies of size linear dichroism prostate gland, as healthy and affected by malignant tumor at different stages of its development was presented. Significant difference in the values of linear dichroism and its spectral dependence in the spectral range λ = 280 - 840 nm as between research facilities, and between biotissues - healthy (or affected by benign tumors) and cancer patients was shown. These results may have diagnostic value for detection and assessment of the development of cancer.

Speckle intensity first-order statistics for a large-scale scattering structure is investigated. Results of computer simulation and experimental studies of coherent light diffraction by large-scale scattering objects are presented. The correlation characteristics of dynamic speckles induced by focused Gaussian beam diffraction is theoretically and experimentally analyzed.

Asymptotic behavior of temporal autocorrelation functions of speckle intensity fluctuations induced by tissue scanning with a focused probe beam is experimentally studied for the transition from a single-scattering to a multiple-scattering mode. Such parameters as the exponential factor (or the Hurst coefficient) and the Hausdorff dimension are proposed for the characterization and the visualization of the variations of the studied tissues’ optical properties in generalized form. We studied reversible transition between various scattering modes stimulated by the application of certain chemical agents to the human sclera samples using speckle intensity correlation analysis; corresponding results are presented. The possibilities of the scattering structures imaging with local estimations of the exponential factor of speckle intensity fluctuations are shown in in vitro experiments with samples of human skin epidermis.

Polarization decay of linearly polarized light propagating in a multiply scattering isotropic medium with embedded model inhomogeneity (absorbing half-plane) is studied experimentally and by means of Monte Carlo simulation. Possibilities of polarization visualization and the location of inhomogeneities masked by scattering media are discussed on the basis of results obtained after comparison with direct measurements of the spatial distribution of the intensity of the scattered light.