Obtaining shape information of marine microorganisms using polarized-light scattering

Polarized-light scattering methods have shown promising potential in characterizing the structural properties of complex biological tissues. Similar methods can also obtain the shape and intracellular information of aqueous suspended microorganisms. In this paper, we measured the Mueller matrix of algae and an alga phantom which consists of cylindrical and spherical scatterers. We also used a Monte Carlo (MC) model containing spheres and randomly oriented infinitely long cylinders to reconstruct the experimental results of cylindrical microorganisms, such as Synedra sp. and the phantom. Based on the analysis of the phantom's polarization properties, the relationship between the depolarization ratio and the ratio of scattering coefficient of sphere versus cylinders (RSCSC) is given, which proves the potential of polarized-light scattering methods to obtain shape information of the microorganisms.