Direct and inverse problems of weak scattering from quasi-homogeneous biological tissue

Abstract

The well-established model for the spatial correlation function of the refractive index fluctuations in a statistically stationary biological tissue [Sheppard CJR. Fractal model of light scattering in biological tissue and cells. Opt Lett. 2007;32:142–144] is applied to the direct scattering problem of light within the validity regimes of the first-order Born approximation and the quasi-homogeneous approximation. It is analytically found how the far-zone angular distribution of the scattered spectral density is related to the parameters of the bio-tissues refractive index correlation function. Then the inverse problem of reconstructing the parameters of the bio-tissues correlation function from several measurements of the scattered spectral density is solved analytically. These results are of importance for medical diagnostics in soft tissues.

Keywords:

• Quasi-homogeneous
• biological tissue
• weak scattering
• Born approximation
• spectral density

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jia Li

Jia Li facilitated with Department of Physics, University of Miami.

Olga Korotkova

Olga Korotkova facilitated with Department of Physics, University of Miami.