Absolute values of transport mean free path of light in non-absorbing media using transmission and reflectance measurements

Abstract

We derived a relation between the transport mean free path of light, and transmittance and the reflectance in non-absorbing turbid media. This allowed us to develop an experimental procedure to obtain absolute values for the transport mean free path of light just by measuring in an integrating sphere both the transmittance and the reflectance in this kind of system. We determined how accurate our method was by comparing our transport mean free path measurements with calculations made for colloidal suspensions of particles using Mie scattering theory and with measurements made in colloidal suspensions of polystyrene microspheres using diffusive wave spectroscopy. The agreement is excellent.