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Effect of spectral width on short laser pulse propagation through upper layers
of human skin: Monte Carlo simulations

Article  in  Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering · July 2004
DOI: 10.1117/12.529897

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 Effect of spectral width on short laser pulses propagation through
upper layers of human skin: Monte Carlo simulations
Alexey P. Popov1, Alexander V. Priezzhev1, and Risto Myllylä2
1
Physics Department and International Laser Center,
M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorobiovy Gory, 119992 Moscow, Russia
2
Optoelectronics and Measurement Techniques Laboratory,
University of Oulu and Infotech Oulu, P.O. Box 4500, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland

ABSTRACT

Ultrashort laser pulses are widely used now for biomedical diagnostics in order to reveal various tissue abnormities, such
as tumors. In particular, the use of these pulses is preferable to investigate relatively thin objects (e.g., layers of human
skin). In this case, femtosecond rather than longer pulses should be used due to more pronounced broadening of their
temporal profiles for forward detected radiation. However ultrashort pulses are characterized by continuous spectra
covering a range of wavelengths. As the optical properties of the probed medium depend on the wavelength, this may
cause problems in deconvoluting the signal.

In this paper, an attempt is made to investigate this problem. A two-layer model of the object mimicking the upper layers
of skin (epidermis and dermis) are considered. Laser pulses of 3.9 to 62.5-fs duration are simulated to impinge onto a
plane two-layered medium. The layers differ by optical parameters. The laser beam radius is 0.1 mm. Central
wavelengths of spectra of the incident pulses lie in UV, blue, or red spectral regions. Absorption and scattering
coefficients of the medium correspond to the real skin; the thicknesses of the successive layers are 0.1 and 0.2 mm
respectively.
It is shown that the δ-function spectrum approximation may be applied to laser pulses, which central wavelengths lie
within the red spectrum region for all tested pulse durations. If the central wavelengths lie within the blue or UV regions,
the spectrum width should be taken into account for pulses shorter than 60 fs.

Keywords: ultrashort laser pulse, human skin, spectral width, scattering, absorption, Monte Carlo method

1. INTRODUCTION

Diseases change various properties of skin, optical in particular1. Lasers emitting pulsed radiation are a promising tool
for detecting these changes and, consequently, various abnormalities of skin. Investigating temporal light scattering
response from tissue, it is possible to deduce the scattering and absorption coefficients of irradiated medium, by solving
the so called inverse scattering problem2,3. Comparing them with the corresponding values of healthy volunteers, one can
make a diagnostic conclusion.

Skin is a multi-layered structure with different optical properties of the layers (see Table 1). In vivo measurements with
skin usually presume directing the backscattered radiation4. However, in this case all the layers contribute to the detected
radiation. In order to distinguish the effect of each layer it is possible to investigate it under in vitro conditions without
the others. Due to small thickness of most of skin layers (about hundred micrometers) it is advantageous to use the trans-
illumination technique in this case. For such purpose ultrashort laser pulses should be applied. The duration of a laser
pulse should be chosen taking into consideration the direct time of flight through the definite layer. In case of 100-µm
thickness of the layer the pulse duration should be less than 0.5 ps. Only under this condition is the pulse broadening
pronounced relative to the initial pulse width, and the layer properties can be determined correctly.
However, the shorter are the pulses, the broader are their spectra. For example, the spectra of 3.9-fs pulses are 99, 185,
and 354 nm wide for the wavelengths of 340, 465, and 640 nm correspondingly, while those of 62.5-fs pulses are 6, 12,

1
dwelle@rambler.ru; phone 7 095 939-2612; fax 7 095 939-3113
and 22 nm wide for the same wavelengths (it will be shown further). Optical properties of human skin are dependent on
the wavelength of the incident radiation. In the UV and blue spectral regions such characteristics of two upper layers of
skin as scattering coefficients, are rather high. They are about 200 and 80 mm-1 (λ = 250 nm) for epidermis and dermis,
correspondingly. These magnitudes are five times larger than those for the IR wavelength of 800 nm! This peculiarity is
even more pronounced for the absorption coefficients. The dependence of both scattering and absorption coefficients on
the incident radiation wavelength looks like an exponential decay. Anisotropy factor g characterizing the scattering
indicatrix increases linearly with the wavelength.

Table 1. Optical properties of human skin (λ = 600 nm, Caucasian type)5.

№ Skin layer µs, mm-1 µa, mm-1 g Refractive index Thickness, µm

1. Stratum corneum 100 0.02 0.9 1.53 20
2. Living epidermis 40 0.015 0.85 1.34 80
3. Papillary dermis 30 0.07 0.8 1.4 100
4. Upper blood net dermis 35 0.1 0.9 1.39 80
5. Dermis 20 0.07 0.76 1.4 1620
6. Deep blood net dermis 35 0.1 0.95 1.39 200
7. Subcutaneous fat 15 0.03 0.8 1.44 5900

As optical properties vary with the wavelength of light, the temporal profiles of forward detected radiation also differ
depending on where the spectrum of radiation is located, what wavelengths belong to it. Laser pulses, which spectra
consist of wavelengths lying within the red or IR region, will be shorter with higher amplitudes than those from UV or
blue regions due to much larger scattering and absorption for the latter case and small thickness of skin layers. Therefore,
wide spectra covering several spectral regions influence the detected pulse and should be taken into consideration.

Because of small thickness of the skin layers (0.1 and 0.2 mm for epidermis and dermis, respectively) diffusion
approximation cannot be applied in general in our case as it is usually used for highly scattering media. It is true also for
UV and blue regions for epidermis: in spite of large scattering coefficients, absorption is very high as well. Probably, the
diffusion approximation is suitable only for dermis within the spectral region of 250 – 350 nm (scattering coefficient is
much higher than the absorption one). On the opposite, the Monte Carlo technique is suitable for our study. It can
involve realistic conditions such as Cartesian coordinates, various boundary conditions; it is valid for different relations
between scattering and absorption coefficients, anisotropy factor, and medium thickness. It also allows including
temporal distribution of incident photons6. Although the Monte Carlo method is a time-consuming technique and subject
to statistical errors, development of computers can reduce the effect of this drawback by simulating more photons
injected into the investigated medium.

In this paper, we numerically investigate by the Monte Carlo method the effect of pulse duration on temporal profiles of
forward detected pulses after propagation through two upper layers of skin, epidermis and dermis. Pulses with spectra
located within UV, blue, and red spectral regions and having durations of 3.9, 7.8, and 62.5 fs are considered. For
comparison temporal profiles of laser pulses without dispersion are calculated. Ten million photons are assumed to be in
every pulse due to both reasonable statistical errors and computation time.

2. MONTE CARLO SIMULATIONS

The numerical model of the sample used in our simulations is represented by two infinitely wide plain layers of 0.1-mm
(epidermis) and 0.2-mm (dermis) thicknesses (Fig. 1). The Monte Carlo method is implemented to simulate photons
trajectories inside the tissue. Boundary conditions are determined by means of Snell’s law at tissue-air interface. The
refractive indices of both layers relative to the surrounding air is 1.4. On both skin-air borders the imaginary square 4x4-
mm2 large detectors are located. Temporal resolution of the detectors is 0.01 ps. Incident pulses impinge normally onto
the outer layer surface; pulse durations vary from 3.9 to 62.5 fs. Initially more values were considered in our research
but later 62.5 fs was chosen as the limiting pulse duration. Above this value no interesting features are observed. The
input radius of a collimated laser beam is assumed to be 0.1 mm. In this paper, the particles constituting the probed
 1 medium are assumed to be symmetrically spherical. Such
approach is often used in similar cases and it is due to
different scattering angles of photons in highly scattering
medium. Therefore, an average indicatrix of scattering can be
used. The use of this model in other papers and comparison of
2 numerical simulations with experimental results shows that
this approximation describes satisfactorily the properties of
most biological tissues7,8.

4 Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the sample model:

1 - incident laser pulse, 2 – epidermis, 3 – dermis,
4 – output laser pulse.

The procedure describing the simulation is reported in detail elsewhere9. After a photon is injected into the medium, the
direction of its movement is determined by two spherical angles. The circumferential angle is defined as ϕ = 2πRandom,
where Random is a random value from the interval (0, 1). In case of highly scattering medium the Henyey-Greenstein
phase function can be used 6:
1 1− g2
p (θ ) = ⋅ , (1)
4π (1 + g 2 − 2 g cos θ ) 3 / 2
where θ is the scattering angle and g = <cosθ> is an anisotropy factor of the light scattering particles. Then the
scattering angle at each scattering event is determined as:

 1 + g 2 − [(1 − g 2 ) /(1 + g − 2 gRandom )] 2  . (2)

θ = cos −1
 
 2g 
Photon pathlength is calculated using random number generator, scattering µs and absorption µa coefficients. At the end
of each pathlength a particle of the medium is assumed to be. The probability of scattering or absorption on the particle
for the photon depends on relation between µs and µa. In case of scattering the procedure continues until the photon hits
the detector or comes out of the medium, in case of absorption the next photon is launched. Time between two
consequent scattering events is calculated as
T = L⋅n/c, (3)

where L = - (µs + µa)-1⋅ln(Random) is a photon pathlength, n is a refractive index of the medium, c is speed of light in
vacuum.

As mentioned above, laser pulses have broad spectra consisting of number of wavelengths. Central wavelengths of
spectra of the incident pulses are assumed to be in UV (340 nm), blue (465 nm), and red (644 nm) spectral regions.
Dependence of optical properties of the medium on the wavelength is involved by change of µs, µa, and g. As the
wavelength increases from 250 to 800 nm, the absorption coefficient is nonlinearly varied within a range of 100...4 mm-1
for epidermis and 2.6…0.17 mm-1 for dermis; the scattering coefficient in a range of 200…42 mm-1 for epidermis and
83.3...17.5 mm-1 for dermis, according to the dependencies10,11 is shown in Fig. 2. These curves are obtained from the
experiment using the inverse Monte Carlo technique. One can see that epidermis is a more scattering and more absorbing
medium in comparison to dermis within the whole investigated wavelength range. Anisotropy factor is varied linearly
from 0.69 to 0.85 according to the formula10:

g ~ 0.62 + λ⋅0.29 ⋅ 10-3, (4)

where λ is the radiation wavelength in nm.
 220 90
1
200 80
180
70 1
160
60 2
140 2
120 50
-1

-1
100 40
mm

mm
80 30
60
20
40
20 10
0 0
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Wavelength, nm W avelength, nm

a b

Fig. 2. Scattering (1) and absorption (2) coefficients for epidermis (a) and dermis (b)10,11.

Figure 3 represents the spectral profiles for pulse durations of 62.5 fs for the wavelength from UV (340 nm), blue (465
nm), and red (644 nm) regions. Squares under all curves (the definite integrals of intensity over the spectral range) are
equal. The curves are normalized by the height of the largest amplitude corresponding to 340 nm.

λ = 340 nm
1,0 400
Normalized spectral intensity, r.u.

350
0,8 λ = 644 nm
300
Spectrum width ∆λ, nm

0,6 λ = 465 nm 250

λ = 465 nm
200
0,4 λ = 644 nm
150 λ = 340 nm
0,2 100

50
0,0
0
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Wavelength, nm Pulse duration, fs

Fig. 3. Spectral profiles for 62.5-fs pulses for the wavelengths Fig.4. Spectral widths of laser pulses with central
used in simulation. wavelengths at 340, 465, and 644 nm for different pulse
durations.
If the pulse duration changes, its spectrum width also changes. Dependencies of spectrum widths (full widths at half
maxima) of pulses for three central wavelengths on pulse duration are shown in Fig. 4. Duration of a pulse τp is related to
its spectral width ∆ν as ∆ν⋅τp ≈ 1, which leads to the relation:

∆λ⋅τp ≈ λ2/c, (5)

where c is a the speed of light.

In this paper, we performed calculations for three pulse durations: 3.9, 7.8, and 62.5 fs. It can be easily concluded from
Figs. 3 and 4, as durations of pulses decrease, their spectra broaden and then begin overlapping. Initial temporal
distribution of photons in the incident pulse is Gaussian:
 ( t −t0 ) 2
1 −
y= ⋅e σ2
, (6)
σ π
where t is the injection time of a photon, t0 corresponds to the maximum of the Gaussian pulse, σ is a half width at the
level e-1. Further in this paper, all of the pulse durations mean full width at half maximum (FWHM), which is related to
σ in the following way: FWHM = σ⋅ln2. The value of 4⋅σ is chosen as the limiting range of time for any incident pulse.
For comparison, the temporal profiles from detected dispersion-free pulses are also used. It means that all the optical
characteristics of the medium, changing for other pulses, remain the same to all photons of one pulse and corresponding
to the central wavelength of the pulse with dispersion. Each pulse contains 10 million photons in the simulations. This
number is chosen because of compromise between the statistical errors and time consumption for computing.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In Fig. 5 temporal profiles of forward detected pulses are

1.0 τ p = 62.5 fs, λ = 644 nm
presented in picosecond time range. Each figure shows the
with and without dispersion difference between pulses with durations of 3.9, 7.8, and 62.5
fs for three central wavelengths. Profiles obtained from
Normalized intensity, r.u.

0.8
dispersion-free pulses are also represented for comparison
τp = 7.8 fs
0.6 a (where the wavelength is noted near the duration). All the
curves are normalized to the largest amplitude.
0.4

All the curves have approximately the same amplitude and

0.2 τ p = 3.9 fs
shape for pulses with 644-nm central wavelength (Fig. 5a).
0.0
This is due to mostly low absorption for all the wavelengths
1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4
within the spectra of the pulses. Nevertheless there is a
distinct difference for 62.5-fs on one hand, and 3.9 and 7.8-fs
Detection time, ps
curves on the other hand: spectra of pulses corresponding to
τ p = 3.9 fs 62.5 fs are not so wide in this case compared to those of 3.9
1.0 τ p = 7.8 fs and 7.8-fs pulses, and scattering properties of both layers of
skin are more pronounced (spectra do not cover blue and UV
Normalized intensity, r.u.

0.8 τ p = 62.5 fs, λ = 465 nm

with and without dispersion
regions), trajectories of photons are curlier, photons spend
0.6 longer time inside skin. Shapes of 62.5-fs pulses with and
b without accounting for the dispersion of tissue parameters are
0.4 identical due to almost no dispersion of the skin optical
properties in the red spectral range (Fig. 2).
0.2
Curves corresponding to 3.9 fs for 465 and 340 nm have the
0.0 largest amplitudes and maxima at shorter times compared to
1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 7.8 and 62.5-fs curves (Fig. 5b, c). This is because the pulses
Detection tim e, ps have the widest spectra for 3.9 fs, covering the regions with
τ p = 3.9 fs
1.0 lower absorption and larger scattering coefficients of the
τ p = 7.8 fs tissue. Accounting for the different time scales in Figs. 5b and
5c one can easily see that the time durations of the detected
Normalized intensity, r.u.

0.8
τ p = 62.5 fs, λ = 340 nm pulses for 465 and 340 nm are longer than for 644 nm. This is
0.6 with and w ithout dispersion due to larger scattering coefficients of epidermis and dermis
0.4 c
for the wavelengths in blue and UV regions.

0.2 Fig. 5. Temporal profiles for different initial pulse durations for
pulses with central wavelength at 644 (a), 465 (b), and 340 (c) nm.
0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Detection tim e, ps
In Fig. 6 the same temporal profiles as in Fig. 5 are shown. But in this case each curve is normalized independent of the
others. Profiles obtained for 340 nm (Fig. 6c) were initially noisy due to large absorption, so they had to be smoothed. At
first they were normalized, afterwards averaged (adjacent averaging, 20 points). This explains why their maxima do not
reach unity along the y-axis. As it could be expected, 644-nm curves (Fig. 6a) did not change much because of low
absorption. Profiles corresponding to 3.9 and 7.8-fs pulses on one hand, and to 62.5-fs pulses on the other, differ
distinctly, but the difference in time scale is only of order 0.1 ps! Even the best streak cameras nowadays can hardly
distinguish such curves.

On the opposite side, 340-nm curves are rather close to each other (Fig. 6c); this can be explained by high absorption in
UV region. The 465-nm profiles (Fig. 6b) seem to differ by shape most of all. “Tails” corresponding to 7.8-fs pulses and
moreover to 3.9-fs pulses are lower than those corresponding to 62.5 fs. This can be explained by the spectral range
covered by the 465-nm pulses: between 340 and 644 nm. At 340 nm, as already mentioned above, absorption is very
high, while at 644 nm it is low. If the spectral width of a 465-nm pulse increases (it corresponds to shorter pulses), it
covers broader spectral region, more photons appear in red and in UV regions but the latter still dominates. Therefore
more photons are absorbed, the “tail” decreases faster.

For all the wavelengths the difference between 3.9, 7.8, and 62.5 fs is evident, and curves corresponding to 62.5 fs both
with and without dispersion nicely coincide. This way, we can say that the δ-function spectrum approximation may be
applied to laser pulses, which central wavelengths lie within the red spectrum region for all tested pulse durations. If the
central wavelengths lie within the blue or UV regions, the broad spectra should be taken into account for pulses shorter
than 60 fs.

1.0 τ p = 62.5 fs, λ = 465 nm

1,0 τ p = 62.5 fs, λ = 644 nm
w ith and w ithout dispersion
Normalized intensity, r.u.

with and without dispersion 0.8

Normalized intensity, r.u.

0,8 τ p = 7.8 fs
0.6
0,6 τ p = 7.8 fs
0.4 b
a
0,4
0.2
τ p = 3.9 fs
0,2 τ p = 3.9 fs
0.0
0,0 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5
1,4 1,6 1,8 2,0 2,2 2,4 Detection tim e, ps
Detection time, ps
τp = 3.9 fs
1,0
τp = 62.5 fs, λ = 340 nm
0,8
Normalized intensity, r.u.

with dispersion

0,6 τp = 62.5 fs
without dispersion
Fig. 6. Temporal profiles of detected pulses for durations of 3.9, 7.8,
0,4 τp = 7.8 fs and 62.5 fs for pulses with central wavelengths at 644 (a), 465 (b),
c
and 340 (c) nm. All curves are normalized separately, profiles in (c)
0,2 are at first normalized, then smoothed (adjacent averaging, 20 points),
so tops do not reach unity along the y-axis.
0,0

1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 5,0 5,5 6,0
Detection time, ps
 4. CONCLUSIONS

In this study the problem of propagation of short laser pulses through a double layer of highly scattering medium
modelling human skin is numerically considered. The skin structure is modelled by two layers with different optical
properties corresponding to natural skin layers. We show by means of the Monte Carlo simulations that time-of-flight
experiments with upper layers of skin (epidermis and dermis) require application of femtosecond pulses. Numerical
simulations show that in this case the δ-function spectrum approximation may be applied to laser pulses, which central
wavelengths lie within the red spectrum region for all tested pulse durations. If the central wavelengths lie within the
blue or UV regions, the spectral width should be taken into account for pulses shorter than 60 fs.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A.P. Popov and A.V. Priezzhev would like to acknowledge partial support of the research by a grant “Leading scientific
schools of Russia” № 2071.2003.4.

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