Monte Carlo model of turbid media with mixed scatterers

Abstract

Modeling image acquisition of objects beneath tissues such as skin have numerous applications to both therapeutic and diagnostic research. Light propagating through skin tissues undergo multiple scattering depending on the transport mean free-path, d_s, and the anisotropy parameter, g, which determines the particle size and the direction of scatter. In our previous work, we consider tissues to be composed of similar scattering particles, i.e. either purely isotropic (g ~ 0⁺) or purely anisotropic (g ~ 1). However, biological tissues are composed of mixed intracellular organelles, i.e nuclei and mitochondria, possessing different scattering properties. Thus, there is a need to consider a more realistic model of skin tissue by incorporating mixed scatterers with different anisotropies.
In this paper, we modify the Monte Carlo (MC) protocol to analyze the optical properties of biological layers containing similar particles and mixed scatterers. In particular, we analyze how the axial response and transmitted intensity deteriorate for both types of scattering layers.