Title :
Studying the propagation of light in strongly scattering media using terahertz pulses
Author :
Pearce, J. ; Mittleman, D.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Rice Univ., Houston, TX, USA
Abstract :
We describe a new class of experiments involving applications of terahertz radiation to problems in biomedical imaging and diagnosis. These involve scale model measurements, in which information can be gained about pulse propagation in scattering media. Because of the scale-invariance of Maxwell´s equations, these experiments can provide insight for researchers working on similar problems at shorter wavelengths. As a first demonstration, we measure the propagation constants for pulses in a dense collection of spherical scatterers, and compare to the predictions of the quasi-crystalline approximation. Even though the fractional volume in our measurements exceeds the limit of validity of this model, we find that it still predicts certain features of the propagation with reasonable accuracy.
Keywords :
Maxwell equations; biomedical optical imaging; light propagation; light scattering; submillimetre wave imaging; Maxwell´s equations scale-invariance; biomedical diagnosis; biomedical imaging; fractional volume; model validity limit; propagation constants; pulse propagation; quasicrystalline approximation; random media; spectroscopic measurements; spherical scatterers; strongly scattering media; terahertz pulses; Biomedical imaging; Biomedical measurements; Gain measurement; Light scattering; Maxwell equations; Optical propagation; Propagation constant; Pulse measurements; Submillimeter wave propagation; Wavelength measurement;
Conference_Titel :
Engineering in Medicine and Biology, 2002. 24th Annual Conference and the Annual Fall Meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society EMBS/BMES Conference, 2002. Proceedings of the Second Joint
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7612-9
DOI :
10.1109/IEMBS.2002.1053310