Light diffusion in N-layered turbid media: steady-state domain

We deal with light diffusion in N-layered turbid media. The steady-state diffusion equation is solved for N-layered turbid media having a finite or an infinitely thick N'th layer. Different refractive indices are considered in the layers. The Fourier transform formalism is applied to derive analytical solutions of the fluence rate in Fourier space. The inverse Fourier transform is calculated using four different methods to test their performance and accuracy. Further, to avoid numerical errors, approximate formulas in Fourier space are derived. Fast solutions for calculation of the spatially resolved reflectance and transmittance from the N-layered turbid media (approximate to 10 ms) with small relative differences (<10(-7)) are found. Additionally, the solutions of the diffusion equation are compared to Monte Carlo simulations for turbid media having up to 20 layers. (C) 2010 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [DOI: 10.1117/1.3368685]