Light scintillation in soft biological tissues

ABSTRACT The applicability limits of the small complex phase perturbation (Rytov) theory for laser light propagation in soft biological tissues have been tackled. We have found that for typical coherent optical waves and for several types of optically soft biological tissues with known spatial power spectra, the weak regime of light-field fluctuations is limited to propagation distances of tens of microns. This result is in striking difference with oceanic or atmospheric propagation of light for which weak fluctuation regime may hold for tens of meters in the former case and kilometers in the latter. Furthermore, the scintillation indexes of plane, spherical, and Gaussian-beam waves are investigated in depth. Our results are envisioned to find applications in optical/infrared techniques for soft tissue diagnostics.

[1]  Jonathan T. C. Liu,et al.  Fractal propagation method enables realistic optical microscopy simulations in biological tissues. , 2016, Optica.

[2]  Nandan Kumar Das,et al.  Probing multifractality in depth-resolved refractive index fluctuations in biological tissues using backscattering spectral interferometry , 2016 .

[3]  Colin J. R. Sheppard,et al.  Scattering by fractal surfaces with an outer scale , 1996 .

[4]  O. Korotkova,et al.  Polarization of random beams scattered from two-dimensional bio-tissue slices , 2014 .

[5]  Peng Yue,et al.  Inner- and outer-scale effects on the scintillation index of an optical wave propagating through moderate-to-strong non-Kolmogorov turbulence. , 2012, Optics express.

[6]  Mingguang Shan,et al.  Refractive index variance of cells and tissues measured by quantitative phase imaging. , 2017, Optics express.

[7]  L. Andrews,et al.  Laser Beam Propagation Through Random Media , 1998 .

[8]  Daomu Zhao,et al.  Propagation of stochastic electromagnetic vortex beams through the turbulent biological tissues , 2014 .

[9]  Shijun Zhu,et al.  Spectral shift of an electromagnetic Gaussian Schell-model beam propagating through tissue , 2011 .

[10]  Subhasri Chatterjee,et al.  Probing multifractality in tissue refractive index: prospects for precancer detection. , 2013, Optics letters.

[11]  W. Gao.  Change of coherence of light produced by tissue turbulence , 2013 .

[12]  G. Popescu,et al.  Correlation-induced spectral changes in tissues. , 2011, Optics letters.

[13]  Olga Korotkova,et al.  Random Light Beams: Theory and Applications , 2013 .

[14]  W. Gao.  Changes of polarization of light beams on propagation through tissue , 2006 .

[15]  Y. Baykal,et al.  Scintillation index of optical spherical wave propagating through biological tissue , 2017 .

[16]  Ji Yi,et al.  Using electron microscopy to calculate optical properties of biological samples. , 2016, Biomedical optics express.

[17]  Ji Yi,et al.  Modeling Light Scattering in Tissue as Continuous Random Media Using a Versatile Refractive Index Correlation Function , 2014, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[18]  Vadim Backman,et al.  Nonscalar elastic light scattering from continuous random media in the Born approximation. , 2009, Optics letters.

[19]  Vadim Backman,et al.  In vivo measurement of the shape of the tissue-refractive-index correlation function and its application to detection of colorectal field carcinogenesis. , 2012, Journal of biomedical optics.

[20]  Gabriel Popescu,et al.  Tissue self-affinity and polarized light scattering in the born approximation: a new model for precancer detection. , 2006, Physical review letters.

[21]  Colin J R Sheppard,et al.  Fractal model of light scattering in biological tissue and cells. , 2007, Optics letters.

[22]  Xiangzhi Bai,et al.  Irradiance scintillation for Gaussian-beam wave propagating through weak non-Kolmogorov turbulence. , 2011, Optics express.

[23]  O. Korotkova,et al.  Changes in the state of polarization of a random electromagnetic beam propagating through tissue , 2007 .

[24]  Larry C. Andrews,et al.  Effects of the refractive index spectral model on the irradiance variance of a Gaussian beam , 1994 .

[25]  R R Alfano,et al.  Fractal mechanisms of light scattering in biological tissue and cells. , 2005, Optics letters.

[26]  W. Gao.  Effect of tissue structure on resolution of imaging systems , 2013 .

[27]  Yu Zhao,et al.  Average intensity and scintillation of light in a turbulent biological tissue , 2016 .

[28]  Nandan K. Das,et al.  Tissue multifractality and Born approximation in analysis of light scattering: a novel approach for precancers detection , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[29]  W. Gao.  Determination of spatial correlation functions of refractive index of living tissue , 2012, Journal of microscopy.

[30]  The statistical properties of anisotropic electromagnetic beams passing through the biological tissues , 2012 .

[31]  J M Schmitt,et al.  Turbulent nature of refractive-index variations in biological tissue. , 1996, Optics letters.

[32]  Olga Korotkova,et al.  Light scintillation in oceanic turbulence , 2012 .