Modelling optical properties of soft tissue by fractal distribution of scatterers

Abstract

Abstract A knowledge of the local refractive index variations and size distribution of scatterers in biological tissue is required to understand the physical processes involved in light-tissue interaction. This paper describes a method for modelling the complicated soft tissue, based on the fractal approach, permitting numerical evaluation of the phase functions and four optical properties of tissue—scattering coefficient, reduced scattering coefficient, backscatter-ing coefficient, and anisotropy factor—by the use of the Mie scattering theory. A key assumption of the model is that refractive index variations caused by microscopic tissue elements can be treated as particles with size distribution according to the power law. The model parameters, such as refractive index, incident wavelength, and fractal dimension, that are likely to affect the predictions of optical properties are investigated. The results suggest that the fractal dimension used to describe how biological tissue can be approximated by particle distribution is highly dependent on how the continuous distribution is discretized. The optical properties of the tissue significantly depend on the refractive index of tissue, implying that the refractive index of the particles should be carefully chosen in the model in order accurately to predict the optical properties of the tissue concerned.