Journal
JOURNAL OF BIOMEDICAL OPTICS
Volume 14, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
SPIE-SOC PHOTO-OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS
DOI: 10.1117/1.3086612
Keywords
emissivity; human skin; infrared; CO2 laser
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To study the radiation emitted by the human skin, the emissivity of its surface must be known. We present a new approach to measure the emissivity of the human skin in vivo. Our method is based on the calculation of the difference of two infrared images: one acquired before projecting a CO2 laser beam on the surface of the skin and the other after such projection. The difference image contains the radiation reflected by the skin, which is used to calculate the emissivity, making use of Kirchhoff's law and the Helmholtz reciprocity relation. With our method, noncontact measurements are achieved, and the determination of the skin temperature is not needed, which has been an inconvenience for other methods. We show that it is possible to make determinations of the emissivity at specific wavelengths. Last, our results confirm that the human skin obeys Lambert's law of diffuse reflection and that it behaves almost like a blackbody at a wavelength of 10.6 mu m. (C) 2009 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [DOI: 10.1117/1.3086612]
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