Simulating light transmission and wavefront shaping in turbid media with a T-matrix method

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Computational Physics
• Biomedical Optics

Background:

• Optical techniques often rely on light interference in turbid media like biological tissues.
• Simulating light propagation in these media is challenging due to difficulties in representing medium properties and high computational costs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a computationally efficient and physically consistent simulation method for coherent light transport in turbid media.
• To bridge the gap between mesoscale scattering parameters and spatially resolved simulations.

Main Methods:

• Coupling a sphere-based representation of turbid media with the T-matrix method.
• Utilizing Mie theory for designing sphere suspensions compatible with T-matrix calculations.
• Simulating light propagation and focusing in diffusive layers and biological tissue samples.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated a physically consistent and computationally efficient method for modeling coherent light transport.
• Successfully simulated light propagation and focusing in thick biological tissue sections (800 µm).
• Enabled deterministic coherent optics simulations across ballistic, quasi-ballistic, and diffusive regimes.

Conclusions:

• The developed simulation method facilitates accurate modeling of coherent phenomena in turbid media.
• This tool can aid in the advancement of optical techniques for applications in biological tissues and other scattering materials.