title: In vitro assessment of optical properties of blood by applying the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle to time-domain optical coherence tomography signal at 1300 nm.
abstract: A direct method for the measurement of the optical attenuation coefficient and the scattering anisotropy parameter based on applying the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle to optical coherence tomography images of blood is demonstrated. The images are acquired with a low-power probing beam at the wavelength of 1300 nm. Values of 12.15 mm(-1) and 0.95 are found for the total attenuation coefficient and the scattering anisotropy factor, respectively. Also, as a preliminary step, the optical refraction index is determined with a precision of two decimal numbers directly from optical coherence images. The total attenuation coefficient and the scattering anisotropy factor are determined with precisions within experimental error margins of 5% and 2%, respectively. Readable OCT signal is obtained for a maximum propagation of light into blood of 0.25 mm. At the maximum probed depth, the measured signal is almost 10(3) smaller than its initial intensity when entering the sample.
authors.affiliation: National Research Council of Canada, Institute for Biodiagnostics, 435 Ellice Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3B 1Y6. dan.popescu@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
authors.forename: Dan P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Popescu
authors.forename: Michael G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Sowa