The near-infrared (NIR) optical properties of human retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) cells and rare earth nanopowders were studied using a double-integrating sphere setup. The Kubelka-Munk and Inverse Adding-Doubling techniques were applied to obtain absorption and scattering coefficients. These are compared with the coefficients obtained through the Representative Layer Theory described by the Dahm equation. Retinal pigmented epithelial monolayers were cultured from an ARPE19 line in thin cell culture windows, and the nanopowders were pressed into samples of varying thickness. Samples were optically characterized as a function of wavelength. A brief discussion of the shortcomings of existing techniques for computing optical properties when applied to physically thin samples is provided, followed by a comparison between the optical properties of the samples returned by the different techniques.

Date Published: 11 February 2010
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 7562, Optical Interactions with Tissues and Cells XXI, 75620C (11 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.841362

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7562:
Optical Interactions with Tissues and Cells XXI
E. Duco Jansen; Robert J. Thomas, Editor(s)