Coherence-Domain Methods in Tissue and Cell Optics

Effects that accompany the propagation of laser radiation in tissues and interaction of laser radiation with cell flows are considered. These effects include diffraction, formation of speckle structures, interference of speckle fields, scattering from moving particles, etc. We discuss coherent optical methods that hold much promise for applications in biomedicine, such as photon-correlation spectroscopy; speckle interferometry; coherent topography and tomography; diffusion wave spectroscopy; phase, confocal, and Doppler microscopy; and low-coherence interferometry and tomography.