omlc

Home

contents

up

next

previous

Light Transport in Tissue


Dimensionless quantities

When dimensionless units are used, light propagation is dependent upon three parameters: the albedo, the optical depth or thickness, and the phase function. The albedo a is a dimensionless parameter defined as the ratio of scattering to the sum of scattering and absorption. The albedo varies between zero and one: a value of zero indicates the absence of scattering and a value of one indicates that the tissue does not absorb light. The optical depth $\tau $ is the product of the tissue thickness and the sum of the scattering and absorption coefficient. An optical depth of one indicates that there is a probability of e-1=37% that light will travel at least that distance without scattering or absorbing.

S. A. Prahl."Light Transport in Tissue," PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1988.