Optical polarimetry of ocular tissues

Optical polarization study is performed on the healthy and neovascularized human retinal and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)/choroidal tissues. Linear polarizer and polarizing analyzer have been employed to determine the intensity changes as well as polarization shifts of the polarized laser light scattered off these tissues from both the left and right eyes. Our studies show that both retinal and choroidal tissues possess strong polarization properties. The polarization shift is found to be higher in the neovascularized tisuues than in the healthy tissues. It is also observed that the. greater the polarization shift, the lower the intensity of the scattered light.