Probing the suspended marine algae using polarized-light scattering

Abstract

In situ marine algae detection is very important for many global issues. Even though polarized-light scattering has the promising application in the biomedical characterization, its potential to detect marine algae is still not clear. The movements of the suspended marine algae due to their own migrations, arise challenges for the polarization measurement and information acquisition. In this paper, we response the challenges and show the potential of the polarized-light scattering to detect the marine algae. We measure the scattering signals of the aqueous suspension of the glass fibers by use of a 2-channel simultaneous polarization measurement setup and describe the properties of the signals. After comparing and analyzing of the polarizations of glass fibers with different orientations, we reveal the ability of polarized-light scattering to retrieve the orientation distribution of the cylindrical scatterers of the sample, and show the method's potential to detect the marine algae.