M. S. Patterson coauthored the 1989 time-resolved tissue-optics study with Britton Chance and B. C. Wilson. It used picosecond light pulses and a diffusion approximation to infer optical properties from the time dependence of transmitted or backscattered light, comparing the model with preliminary measurements and Monte Carlo simulations.[ref]
The measurement separates effects that an overall brightness reading can mix together. Repeated light scattering lengthens photon paths and broadens the arrival-time distribution, while absorption suppresses photons along those paths. A pulsed source, a sample and a time-sensitive detector therefore provide more information than a single steady illumination measurement. Inferring coefficients still depends on the geometry and the validity of the transport approximation; pulse timing does not remove the need for a physical model.
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