Non-tissue-like features in the time-of-flight distributions of plastic tissue phantoms

We measure high-temporal-resolution time-of-flight distributions of picosecond laser pulses in the visible and near-infrared, scattered in the forward direction by solid and liquid phantoms, and compare them to those obtained by using ex vivo tissues. We demonstrate that time-of-flight distributions from solid phantoms made of Delrin, Nylon, and Teflon are modulated by ripples that are absent in the biological samples and disappear when the temporal and/or angular resolution of the measuring apparatus is decreased. This behavior prevents the use of such materials as tissue phantoms when spatial mode and time selection are required, such as in imaging methods exploiting early arriving photons. © 2008 Optical Society of America.