2-DIMENSIONAL INVERSE PROBLEM OF DIFFUSION TOMOGRAPHY - THE APPROACH APPLICABLE FOR SMALL INCLUSIONS

A method for solving the two-dimensional inverse problems of optical d iffusion tomography is proposed. The method is especially designed for the imaging pf small inclusions embedded in the backgrounds of strong ly scattering media. Numerical simulations show that the results are s table with respect to external noise at the boundary of the sample. Th e location of an inclusion is obtained with an accuracy of the order o f several photon transport mean-free paths in the medium in cases both with and without noise in the scattering data used for the solution o f the inverse problem. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.