Development of silicone-based phantoms for biomedical optics from 400 to 1550 nm.

This work describes the development of silicone-based evaluation phantoms for biomedical optics in the wavelength range from 400 to 1550 nm. The absorption coefficient and the reduced scattering coefficient were determined using an integrating sphere setup. Zirconium dioxide pigments were used as scatterers and carbon black as absorbers. We developed an in-house manufacturing process using a Hauschild SpeedMixer to ensure reproducibility. A set of nine cubic phantoms with three different reduced scattering and absorption coefficients was produced. Prediction of the and was done by using the weighted mass concentrations of the used materials. The average prediction accuracy over all wavelengths and phantoms is 1.0% for the reduced scattering coefficient and 3.5% for the absorption coefficient.