Optical reflection statistics from a thin weakly disordered optical media: application to detection of structural alterations in cells/tissues

Light-scattering from a weakly disordered optical medium with a mean refractive index different from the embedding medium is studied. In the disordered thin-film limit, a linearized one-dimensional stochastic model is introduced to derive the full statistics of the reflected light. A new decorrelation length scale arises from the interplay between disorder scattering and thin-film interference.

The model is applicable to analyzing the reflected light in experiments that employ the partial wave spectroscopy technique. We show how they can be directly applied to extract the cell/tissue thickness and mean sample refractive index to determine the structural disorder parameter – a key biological marker for disease-related abnormal alterations in the intracellular structures. Applications in different types of disease detection in cells/tissues are also discussed.

[1] A. Punnoose, S. Nanda, and P. Pradhan. Opt. Exp. 29, 43612-43625 (2021)