Measurements of wavelength dependent scattering and backscattering coefficients by low-coherence spectroscopy

Quantitative measurements of scattering properties are invaluable for optical techniques in medicine. However, noninvasive, quantitative measurements of scattering properties over a large wavelength range remain challenging. We introduce low-coherence spectroscopy as a noninvasive method to locally and simultaneously measure scattering mu(s) and backscattering mu(b) coefficients from 480 to 700 nm with 8 nm spectral resolution. The method is tested on media with varying scattering properties (as = 1 to 34 mm(-1) and mu(b) = 2.10(-6) to 2.10(-3) mm(-1)), containing different sized polystyrene spheres. The results are in excellent agreement with Mie theory. (C) 2011 society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). [DOI: 10.1117/1.3553005]