An Approximate Numerical Technique forCharacterizing Optical Pulse Propagation in Inhomogeneous Biological Tissue

[摘要] An approximate numerical technique for modeling optical pulse propagationthrough weakly scattering biological tissue is developed by solvingthe photon transport equation in biological tissue that includes varyingrefractive index and varying scattering/absorption coefficients. The proposedtechnique involves first tracing the ray paths defined by the refractiveindex profile of the medium by solving the eikonal equation usinga Runge-Kutta integration algorithm. The photon transport equation issolved only along these ray paths, minimizing the overall computationalburden of the resulting algorithm. The main advantage of the current algorithmis that it enables to discretise the pulse propagation space adaptivelyby taking optical depth into account. Therefore, computationalefficiency can be increased without compromising the accuracy of the algorithm.

[学科分类] 基础医学