Adaptive optics applied to the scintillation index in tissues.

Mitigation of the scintillation index of a collimated Gaussian beam, occurring in a turbulent tissue, is investigated by applying adaptive optics. Tilt and astigmatism types of adaptive optics corrections are applied, and the reduction in the tissue scintillations, referenced to no adaptive optics (No AO) scintillations, is reported for tilt only (T Only), astigmatism only (A Only), and total (T+A) adaptive optics correction. Reduction in the scintillations is analyzed against the tissue length, Gaussian laser beam source size, wavelength, receiver aperture diameter, and the tissue turbulence parameters, which are the strength coefficient of the refractive-index fluctuations, fractal dimension, characteristic length of heterogeneity, and small length-scale factor. Finally, the adaptive optics effect on the scintillations is reported for some specific tissue types of liver parenchyma (mouse), intestinal epithelium (mouse), and upper dermis (human).