Tissue Turbulence and Its Effects on Optical Waves: a Review

Abstract

Tissue turbulence and the effects of tissue turbulence on the propagation of optical waves are reviewed. After the introduction of a survey on the reported research in this area, various topics are elaborated. These topics include the spectrum of tissue turbulence, propagation of light in the tissue, average intensity, beam spread that occur at the receiver plane in the tissue. Other entities examined are the signal to noise ratio (SNR), intensity correlation, beam wander, mutual coherence function and the spectral degree of coherence. Furthermore, spectral change, cross spectral density, spectral correlation function, scintillation, bit error rate (BER), coupling efficiency in tissue turbulence are investigated. The refractive index structure of tissues, imaging in the presence of turbulence in the tissue, scattering, absorption and polarization aspects in tissues are reported. Finally, optical coherence tomography applications in turbulent tissues are reviewed.