Abstract

We report on the development of a method that records spatially dependent intensity patterns of polarized light that is diffusely backscattered from highly scattering media. It is demonstrated that these intensity patterns can be used to differentiate turbid media, such as polystyrene-sphere and biological-cell suspensions. Our technique employs polarized light from a He-Ne laser (l=543nm), which is focused onto the surface of the scattering medium. A surface area of approximately 4x4 cm centered on the light input point is imaged through polarization-analysis optics onto a CCD camera. One can observe a large variety of intensity patterns by varying the polarization state of the incident laser light and changing the analyzer configuration to detect different polarization components of the backscattered light. Introducing the Mueller-matrix concept for diffusely backscattered light, a framework is provided to select a subset of measurements that comprehensively describe the optical properties of backscattering media.

© Optical Society of America

[Optical Society of America ]

» View Full Text: Acrobat PDF (1770 KB)

History
Original Manuscript: October 8, 1997
Revised Manuscript: October 8, 1997
Published: December 22, 1997

References

1. J.M. Schmitt, A.H. Gandjbakhche and R.F. Bonner, "Use of polarized-light to discriminate short-path photons in a multiply scattering medium," Appl. Opt. 31, 6535-6546 (1992).
2. R.R. Anderson, "Polarized-light examination and photography of the skin," Arch. Dermatol. 127, 1000-1005 (1991).
3. S.L. Jacques, L.H. Wang, D.V. Stephens, and M. Ostermeyer, "Polarized light transmission through skin using video reflectometry: toward optical tomography of superficial tissue layers," in Lasers in Surgery: Advanced Characterization, Therapeutics, and Systems VI, R. R. Anderson, ed., Proc. SPIE 2671, pp. 199-220 (1996).
4. S.G. Demos, and R.R. Alfano, "Optical polarization imaging," Appl. Opt. 36, 150-155 (1997).
5. A.H. Hielscher, J.R. Mourant, I.J. Bigio, "Diffuse polarization spectroscopy on tissue phantoms and biological cell suspensions", in Optical Biopsies and Microscopic Techniques, I.J. Bigio, W.S. Grundfest, H. Schneckenburger, K. Svanberg, P.M. Viallet, eds., Proc. SPIE 2926, pp. 67-76 (1996).
6. A.H. Hielscher, J.R. Mourant, I.J. Bigio, "Influence of particle size and concentration on the diffuse backscattering of polarized light from tissue phantoms and biological cell suspensions," Appl. Opt. 36, 125-135 (1997).
7. W.S. Bickel and W.M. Bailey, "Stokes vectors, Mueller matrices, and polarized light scattering," Am. J. Phys. 53, 468-478 (1985).
8. H.C. van de Hulst, Light Scattering by Small Particles (John Wiley&Sons, New York, NY, 1957)
9. W.S. Bickel, A.J. Watkins, and G. Videen, "The light-scattering Mueller matrix elements for Rayleigh, Rayleigh-Gans, and Mie spheres," Am. J. Phys. 55, 559-561 (1987).
10. L.C. Junqueira, J. Carneiro, and R.O. Kelley, Basic Histology (Appleton&Lange, Norwalk, Connecticut, 1992), pp. 108-110.
11. L.A. Kunz-Schugart, K. Groebe, and W. Mueller-Klieser, "Three-dimensional cell culture induces novel proliferative and metabolic alterations associated with oncogenic transformation," Int. J. Cancer. 66, 578-586 (1996).
12. K.E. LaRue, E.M. Bradbury, and J.P. Freyer, "Regulation of G1 transit by cyclin kinase inhibitors in multicellular spheroid cultures of rat embryo fibroblast cells transformed to different extents," Cancer Res., in press (1998).
13. S.L. Jacques, A. Gutsche, J. Schwartz, L. Wang, and F.K. Tittel, "Video reflectometry to extract optical properties of tissue in vivo," in Medical Optical Tomography: Functional Imaging and Monitoring, G. Mueller, B. Chance, R.R. Alfano, S.R. Arridge, J. Beuthan, E. Gratton, M. Kaschke, B.R. Masters, S. Svanberg, and P. van der Zee, eds., Vol. ISII of SPIE Institute Series (Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, Bellingham, WA, 1992) pp. 211-226.
14. A. Kienle, L. Lilge, M.S. Patterson, R. Hibst, R. Steiner, and B.C. Wilson, "Spatially resolved absolute diffuse reflectance measurements for noninvasive determination of the optical scattering and absorption coefficients of biological tissue," Appl. Opt. 35, 2304-2314 (1996).
15. T.J. Farrell, M.S. Patterson, and B. Wilson, "A diffusion theory model of spatially resolved, steady-state diffuse reflectance for the noninvasive determination of tissue optical properties in vivo," Med. Phys. 19, 879-888 (1992).
16. J.R. Mourant, T. Fuselier, J. Boyer, T.M.. Johnsons, and I.J. Bigio, "Predictions and measurements of scattering and absorption over broad wavelength ranges in tissue phantoms," Appl. Opt. 36, 949-957 (1997).
17. M.G. Nichols, E.L. Hull, and T.H. Foster, "Design and testing of a white-light, steady-state diffuse reflectance spectrometer for determination of optical properties of highly scattering systems," Appl. Opt. 36, 93-104 (1997).
18. J.T. Bruulsema, J.E. Hayward, T.J. Farrel, M.S. Patterson, L. Heinemann, M. Berger, T. Koschinsky, J. Sandahlchristiansen, and H. Orskov, "Correlation between blood-glucose concentration in diabetics and noninvasively measured tissue optical scattering coefficients," Opt. Lett. 22, 190-192 (1997).
19. A. Kienle and M.S. Patterson, "Improved solutions of the steady-state and time-resolved diffusion equation for reflectance from a semi-infinite turbid medium," J. Opt. Soc. of Am. A 14, 246-254 (1997).
20. R. Bays, G. Wagnieres, D. Robert, D. Braichotte, J.F. Savary, P. Monnier, and H. Vandenbergh, "Clinical determination of tissue optical properties by endoscopic spatially-resolved reflectometry," Appl. Opt. 35, 1756-1766 (1996).
21. H.L. Liu, D.A. Boas, Y.T Zhang, A.G. Yodh, and B. Chance, "Determination of optical-properties and blood oxygenation in tissue using continous NIR light," Phys. Med. Biol. 40, 1983-1993 (1995).
22. P. Marquet, F. Bevilacqua, C. Depeursinge, E.B. Dehaller, "Determination of reduced scattering and absorption coefficients by a single charged coupled device array measurement: 1. Comparison between experiments and simulations," Opt. Eng. 34, 2055-2063 (1995).
23. L.H. Wang and S.L. Jaques, "Hybrid model of Monte Carlo simulations and diffusion theory for light flectance by turbid media," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 10, 1746-1752 (1993).
24. T.J. Farrell, B.C. Wilson, and M.S. Patterson, "The use of a neural network to determine tissue optical properties from spatially resolved diffuse reflectance mesurements.," Phys. Med. Biol. 37, 2281-2286 (1992).

Author Affiliations

Andreas Hielscher, Angela Eick, Judith Mourant, Dan Shen, James Freyer, Irving Bigio

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Cited By

OSA is able to provide readers links to articles that cite this paper by participating in CrossRef's Cited-By Linking service. In addition to listing OSA journal articles that cite this paper, citing articles from other participating publishers will also be listed.

Advanced Search

Recent ToC Categories (Beta)

• Jan 14 2010 : OSA wins SPARC Innovator award for Optics Express. Read the press release.
• Jan 14 2010 : The Journal of the Optical Society of Korea is now available in the Optics InfoBase!
• Jan 08 2010 : Optics InfoBase now supports export to Mendeley. Learn more about Mendeley for online citation management and sharing.

More News

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea Added to OSA’s Optics InfoBase
  Feb 1, 2010 - The Optical Society (OSA) is pleased to announce that Optics... more
• OSA to Launch New Journal: Biomedical Optics Express
  Jan 20, 2010 - The Optical Society (OSA) today announced it is launching a new... more
• Invisibility Visualized
  Nov 12, 2009 - Scientists and curiosity seekers who want to know what a partially or... more