Coherent light scattering by in vitro cell arrays observed with angle-resolved low coherence interferometry

Angle-resolved low coherence interferometry enables depth-resolved measurements of scattered light. The scattered light measurements can be used to recover structural information from sub-surface layers, such as the size of cell nuclei. Measurements of nuclear morphology, however, can be complicated by coherent scattering between adjacent cell nuclei. Previous studies have eliminated this component by applying a window filter to Fourier transformed data based upon the justification that the coherent scattering must necessarily occur over length scales greater than the cell nucleus size. To fully study this effect, we now present results of experiments designed to test the validity of this approach. We examine light scattered by regular cell arrays. created using stamped adhesive micro-patterned substrates. By varying the array spacing, the influence of cell-to-cell correlations on light scattering distributions is determined. The impact on nuclear morphology measurements within intact tissue samples is discussed.