Design and Characterisation of a Tissue Phantom System for Optical Diagnostics

We present an optical phantom system especially suited to investigating the generation and transport of laser-induced fluorescence in biological tissues. The phantom system consists of micrometre-sized particles of aluminium oxide, iron and coloured resin dispersed in a solid, transparent host (polyorganosiloxane), from which mechanically stable samples can be made. Mie theory is applied to predict the radiation transport parameters from the optical properties of the isolated components. The predictions are in good agreement with the results of integrating sphere measurements. The radiation transport parameters of the samples are reproducible and temporally stable.