Table 1.

Optical properties of tissue types used in Monte Carlo simulations.

	μa [1/cm]	μs [1/cm]	g
Watera	3.56 × 10−4	100	1.0
Pigmented epidermis	16	376	0.90
Dermis (with 0.2% bloodb)	0.46	357	0.90
Blood vessel	231	94	0.90

^aWater is assigned a low absorption but a high scattering coefficient with g = 1.0, so that the photon steps through the water with no scattering and deposits energy to allow calculation of the escaping fluence in the water.

^bThe apparent average dermal blood volume fraction based on diffuse reflectance spectra. This tutorial model does not attempt to distinguish the superficial venous plexus in the papillary dermis and the reticular dermis.