Liquid phantoms for near-infrared and diffuse correlation spectroscopies with tunable optical and dynamic properties

• Published in: Biomedical optics express Vol. 9; no. 5; pp. 2068 - 2080
• Main Authors: Cortese, Lorenzo, Presti, Giuseppe Lo, Pagliazzi, Marco, Contini, Davide, Mora, Alberto Dalla, Pifferi, Antonio, Sekar, Sanathana Konugolu Venkata, Spinelli, Lorenzo, Taroni, Paola, Zanoletti, Marta, Weigel, Udo M, de Fraguier, Sixte, Nguyen-Dihn, An, Rosinski, Bogdan, Durduran, Turgut
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Optical Society of America 01-05-2018
• Subjects: (290.1990) Diffusion; (170.6480) Spectroscopy, speckle; (290.0290) Scattering; (170.3660) Light propagation in tissues
• ISSN: 2156-7085; 2156-7085
• DOI: 10.1364/BOE.9.002068

We present the recipe and characterization for preparing liquid phantoms that are suitable for both near-infrared spectroscopy and diffuse correlation spectroscopy. The phantoms have well-defined and tunable optical and dynamic properties, and consist of a solution of water and glycerol with fat emulsion as the scattering element. The recipe takes into account the effect of bulk refractive index changes due to the addition of glycerol, which is commonly used to alter the sample viscosity.