ABSTRACT
Biomedical optics is a multidisciplinary field that embraces the studies of light propagation in biological samples, processes of light/tissue interaction, and applications of optical techniques in biology and medicine. Application areas of biomedical optics range from medical therapy, monitoring, and diagnostics, to microscopy studies of biological samples. Here we describe the fundamental properties of light, the optical properties of tissue, the basic mechanisms of lighttissue interaction (and their role in therapeutic applications of light), and a physical model that describes light propagation in tissue. We also describe a number of optical spectroscopy and imaging approaches that find applications in medical monitoring and diagnostics and in the study of biological samples at a tissue, cellular, and subcellular level.
