Field correlations of a partially coherent optical Gaussian wave in tissue turbulence

Abstract

For a partially coherent Gaussian optical wave, field correlations in turbulent tissues are examined. Changes in the field correlations are evaluated when the degree of source coherence, diagonal length from the receiver point, transverse receiver coordinate, tissue type, tissue length, source size, characteristic length of heterogeneity, strength coefficient of the refractive-index fluctuations, fractal dimension, and the small length-scale factor of the turbulent tissue vary. Investigated turbulent tissue types are liver parenchyma (mouse), upper dermis (human), intestinal epithelium (mouse), and deep dermis (mouse). For all the examined tissue types, field correlations are found to increase as the degree of source coherence, fractal dimension, and small length-scale factor increase and as the diagonal length from the receiver point, transverse receiver coordinate, tissue length, characteristic length of heterogeneity, and strength coefficient of the refractive-index fluctuations decrease. For the coherent source, an increase in the source size will increase the field correlations; however, for the partially coherent source, this trend is reversed.