Application of single integrating sphere system to obtain the optical properties of turbid media

Abstract

In this study, a simple method to determine the reflectance and transmittance of turbid media is proposed. The method is based on a single integrating sphere system. The integrating sphere theory is used to calculate the reflectance and transmittance under diffuse and directional illumination, and an experimental setup is proposed to measure these quantities. This method was used to determine the reflectance and transmittance of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogels. Monte Carlo calculations were also implemented to validate our results. The comparison shows that the optical properties obtained through this method propagate low values of uncertainty, and a setup simpler than that of the double integrating sphere system can be realized. However, our system is limited to the diffuse–diffuse transmittance. The results suggest that the single sphere system and Monte Carlo method can be a strong combination to calculate the inherent optical properties of PVA samples.