Determination of the concentration scaling law of the scattering coefficient of water solution of Intralipid at 832 nm by comparison between collimated detection measurements and Monte Carlo simulations

Background and Objectives: Intralipid (IP) is a scatterer extensively used in the building of phantoms for Biomedical Optics measurements. Recently, deviations from the linearity have been shown for the concentration scaling law of the scattering coefficient of IP water solutions at visible wavelengths. In this work this scaling law was determined at 832 nm.Study Design/Materials and Methods: Space resolved transmittance measurements of a laser beam at 832 nm through water solutions of IP and ink were performed and compared with the corresponding results of Monte Carlo simulations.Results: The comparison provides a quadratic dependence of mu'(S) on the volume-to-volume scatterer concentration, C-IP, in the range of C-IP values (0.0024 < C-IP < 0.0075). These deviations from the linear behavior are related to the failure of the independent scatterer approximation.Conclusion: The quadratic dependence of mu'(S) on C-IP is in agreement with recent results obtained by other groups with different experimental techniques and is validated by a recent theoretical work.