Depolarization and speckle analysis in turbid materials composed of disk-like and spherical Mie scatterers

This study investigates polarization speckle patterns arising from illuminated suspension of disk-like hexagonal NaYF₄ microplates and volume-equivalent silica microspheres, to investigate how scatterer shape and turbidity influence transmission-mode speckle statistics and polarization behavior. In the transmission geometry and low scattering regime examined here, simple depolarization analysis reveals minimal sensitivity to medium characteristics. In contrast, speckle statistical properties do provide some differentiation: speckle size reflects sample turbidity, while speckle contrast depends on scatterer shape. The corresponding intensity probability distributions further support these findings, demonstrating distinct statistical signatures for spherical versus nonspherical suspensions.