  A new concept devoted to sensing the depolarization strength of materials
from a single measurement is proposed and successfully validated on a variety
of samples. It relies on the measurement of the orthogonality breaking between
two orthogonal states of polarization after interaction with the material to be
characterized. The two fields orthogonality being preserved after propagation
in birefringent media, this concept is shown to be perfectly suited to
depolarization remote sensing through fibers, opening the way to real time
depolarization endoscopy.
