Boundary discretization in the numerical simulation of light propagation in skin tissue: problem and strategy

Hao Jia; Bin Chen; Dong Li; Yong Zhang

doi:10.1117/1.JBO.20.2.025007

24 February 2015 Boundary discretization in the numerical simulation of light propagation in skin tissue: problem and strategy

Hao Jia, Bin Chen, Dong Li, Yong Zhang

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Journal of Biomedical Optics, Vol. 20, Issue 2, 025007 (February 2015). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JBO.20.2.025007

Abstract

To adapt the complex tissue structure, laser propagation in a two-layered skin model is simulated to compare voxel-based Monte Carlo (VMC) and tetrahedron-based MC (TMC) methods with a geometry-based MC (GMC) method. In GMC, the interface is mathematically defined without any discretization. GMC is the most accurate but is not applicable to complicated domains. The implementation of VMC is simple because of its structured voxels. However, unavoidable errors are expected because of the zigzag polygonal interface. Compared with GMC and VMC, TMC provides a balance between accuracy and flexibility by the tetrahedron cells. In the present TMC, the body-fitted tetrahedra are generated in different tissues. No interface tetrahedral cells exist, thereby avoiding the photon reflection error in the interface cells in VMC. By introducing a distance threshold, the error caused by confused optical parameters between neighboring cells when photons are incident along the cell boundary can be avoided. The results show that the energy deposition error by TMC in the interfacial region is one-tenth to one-fourth of that by VMC, yielding more accurate computations of photon reflection, refraction, and energy deposition. The results of multilayered and n-shaped vessels indicate that a laser with a 1064-nm wavelength should be introduced to clean deep-buried vessels.

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Hao Jia, Bin Chen, Dong Li, and Yong Zhang "Boundary discretization in the numerical simulation of light propagation in skin tissue: problem and strategy," Journal of Biomedical Optics 20(2), 025007 (24 February 2015). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JBO.20.2.025007

Published: 24 February 2015

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