Determination of optical properties of turbid media spanning visible and near-infrared regimes via spatially modulated quantitative spectroscopy

We present a novel, noncontact method for the determination of quantitative optical properties of turbid media from 430 to 1050 nm. Through measuring the broadband reflectance from an unknown sample as a function of the spatial frequency of the projected illumination patterns, the absolute absorption and reduced scattering coefficients can be calculated without a priori assumptions of the chromophores present. This technique, which is called spatially modulated quantitative spectroscopy (SMoQS), was validated through the quantification of optical properties of homogenous liquid phantoms with known concentrations of absorbers and scatterers. The properties of the phantoms were recovered across the range of values prepared with R(2) values of 0.985 and 0.996 for absorption and reduced scattering, respectively. A measurement was also performed on skin tissue as a demonstration of the method's performance in vivo. The resultant absorption spectrum was well described by a multichromophore fit, and the quantitative values for oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin, water, and melanin were within published ranges for skin.