Quantitative model of diffuse speckle contrast analysis for flow measurement

Diffuse speckle contrast analysis (DSCA) is a noninvasive optical technique capable of monitoring deep tissue blood flow. However, a detailed study of the speckle contrast model for DSCA has yet to be presented. We deduced the theoretical relationship between speckle contrast and exposure time and further simplified it to a linear approximation model. The feasibility of this linear model was validated by the liquid phantoms which demonstrated that the slope of this linear approximation was able to rapidly determine the Brownian diffusion coefficient of the turbid media at multiple distances using multiexposure speckle imaging. Furthermore, we have theoretically quantified the influence of optical property on the measurements of the Brownian diffusion coefficient which was a consequence of the fact that the slope of this linear approximation was demonstrated to be equal to the inverse of correlation time of the speckle. (C) 2017 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)