Conditions during passage of short optical pulses across a strongly scattering media

A transient two-flux model of the interaction of light with a strongly scattering medium is developed on the basis of the concept of the paraxial photon propagating along the direction of thin pulsed laser beam incident on such a medium. An analitic expression for the radiation flux transmitted by a scattering medium is derived. Calculations are made of the dependences of the parameters of the temporal distributions of the transmitted radiation on the characteristics of the scattering medium. It is swown that the absorption and scattering coefficients of such a medium con be determined from the profile of the temporal distributions of the transmitted radiation. An experimental determination of the temporal distributions is reported for the radiation from a picosecond neodymium laser transmitted by a model scattering medium (a solution of dried milk in water). The experimental results are described well by the theoretical model.