ADVANCES IN ULTRAFAST RADIATIVE TRANSFER MODELING AND APPLICATIONS: A REVIEW

Abstract

The use of ultrafast laser technology has become widespread in recent years for many emerging applications, such as optical tomography, plasma‐mediated ablation, surgical and medical proce‐ dures, and device manufacturing and material microprocessing for both biomedical and indus‐ trial purposes. In situations where ultrafast laser experimentation is complicated or expensive, numerical modeling can be implemented as a realistic alternative. In optical imaging reconstruc‐ tion, forward modeling of radiative transfer under various conditions is indispensable. To deter‐ mine radiant energy propagation with ultrafast speed of light, an accurate solution of the time‐dependent hyperbolic equation of radiative transfer is required; and this is featured as ul‐ trafast radiative transfer. In this review, advances in the computational modeling of ultrafast ra‐ diative transfer are discussed. Various numerical solution methodologies, along with the mentioning of their contributing works, advantages and challenges, are presented. The impor‐ tance of appropriate treatment of anisotropic scattering of both ballistic and diffuse radiations is addressed. Additionally, specific applications of ultrafast laser technology in the biomedical field are presented, along with contributing works.