Abstract

We investigated the influence of the phase function on the determination of the optical properties of turbid media by measuring the spatially resolved reflectance, R(ρ). Monte Carlo simulations of R(ρ) using different experimental and theoretical phase functions served as ‘experimental data’. We show that the errors in the optical properties are as high as 100%, if these data are fitted with a standard solution of the diffusion In addition, Monte Carlo simulations are applied to fit the ‘experimental data’ using the scattering coefficient, the absorption coefficient and an additional parameter, that characterizes the phase function, as fitting parameters. It is shown that the errors in the optical parameters are ≤ 20%.

© 2001 OSA/SPIE