LOW-COHERENCE OPTICAL TOMOGRAPHY IN TURBID TISSUE - THEORETICAL-ANALYSIS

On the basis of white-light interferometry and statistical optics, a t heoretical model for low-coherence optical tomography is presented tha t establishes the relation of interference modulation with path-length -resolved reflectance and that can provide analytical expressions and numerical solutions by means of a Fourier transform. The Monte Carlo t echnique is used to simulate the path-length-resolved reflectance from different multilayer tissue phantoms. Theoretical analyses and prelim inary experimental results suggest that, unlike time-resolved spectros copy, low-coherence optical tomography detects the local relative vari ations of path-length-resolved reflectance from the turbid tissues.