Measurements and calculations of the energy fluence rate in a scattering and absorbing phantom at 633 nm

We have studied the influence of absorption, scattering, and refractive index of a phantom medium in conjunction with various beam diameters on the penetration depth of light at 633 nm. We used mixtures of Intralipid 10% (scattering medium) and Evans blue (absorbing medium). Measurements were performed in media with a scattering coefficient of 1 mm(-1), an anisotropy factor of 0.71, absorption coefficients of 1.3 x 10(-3), 0.01, and 0.05 mm(-1), and a refractive index of 1.33. The experimental results were compared with an analytical solution of the fluence rate based on diffusion theory. We found good agreement (deviations of <10%) between theory and experiment for incident beam diameters between 10 and 60 mm