Finite-difference time-domain simulation of light scattering from multiple cells

Summary form only given. Optical properties of tissue in the near-infrared region are of great interest, stimulated primarily by successful applications of imaging techniques such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) and confocal microscopy (CM). OCT and CM provide information on physiological state of the tissue derived from the tissue scattering properties. Microscopic mechanisms of tissue scattering are fairly complex due to spatial and time varying dielectric tissue structure. Widely used for modeling of light propagation in tissue, the Monte Carlo method deals only with macroscopic tissue scattering properties. In this paper we address a more fundamental problem, namely, scattering from multiple cells at the microscopic level. To model light scattering from objects with a complex dielectric structure we use the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. We apply the FDTD technique to model light scattering from multiple cell samples in two dimensions. Our results show that interactions such as multiple scattering play a significant role in tissue scattering, altering the shape of the phase function.