ABSTRACT
Accurate description of light transport in dental hard tissue relies on knowledge of the exact form of the phase function Φ(cos(θ)) for each tissue scatterer at each wavelength.9 erefore, direct measurement of the phase function is necessary. It is important to note that the empirically derived Kubelka-Munk (KM) coecients that are commonly used in dentistry are not fundamental optical constants and are not appropriate for describing light transport in tissue with forward directed scattering such as enamel and dentin, particularly in the near-IR.6,8 Scattering in most biological tissues can be represented by a Henyey-Greenstein (HG) function with values of (g) greater than 0.8 scattering.6-9 e scattering anisotropy (g) should be determined within the context of an appropriate phase function based on the nature of the scatterers in the tissue6,8 and subsequently validated through comparison of simulated scattering distributions with measured distributions of various thickness.4 Measured angular-resolved scattering distributions could not be represented by a single scattering phase function Φ(cos θ) and required a linear combination of a highly forward peaked phase function, an HG function, and an isotropic phase function represented by the following equation4:
Φ θ − −
− θ (cos ) ( )
( )
( cos ) .
