Intensity-based feedback of the thermally induced denaturation of collagen

Since the birefringent property of collagenous tissue results in a phase shift between scattered orthogonal linear polarizations, this phase shift was used to develop an intensity based measurement technique of birefringence. If the two orthogonal polarizations are coupled into a common linear polarization then interference, and thus intensity, may be used to dynamically measure denaturation-associated birefringence losses. Excellent agreement between the theory and experiments were obtained.