Measurements of wavelength dependent scattering and backscattering coefficients by low-coherence spectroscopy.

Quantitative measurements of scattering properties are invaluable for optical techniques in medicine. However, noninvasive, quantitative measurements of scattering properties over a large wavelength range remain challenging. We introduce low-coherence spectroscopy as a noninvasive method to locally and simultaneously measure scattering μ(s) and backscattering μ(b) coefficients from 480 to 700 nm with 8 nm spectral resolution. The method is tested on media with varying scattering properties (μ(s) = 1 to 34 mm(-1) and μ(b) = 2.10(-6) to 2.10(-3) mm(-1)), containing different sized polystyrene spheres. The results are in excellent agreement with Mie theory.