Abstract

Biological tissues, including human skin, are complex objects for optical measurements. Because of its multi-component structure, they are characterized by a combined response to various dynamic changes, both inside and outside of the biological object. Change of glucose concentration in the blood leads to a number of processes, which affect the light-scattering properties of the skin and subcutaneous layers, herewith scattering coefficient and the polarization of the scattered light vary. The possibility of non-invasive blood glucose detection by parameters of backscattered laser light was experimentally demonstrated. Degree of polarization of light scattered by human skin and model objects was registered and dependence of the polarization state of backscattered radiation on the glucose concentration in the human blood was shown. A laboratory model of a differential polarimeter, which allows registering the parameters of the polarized radiation scattered by human skin and glucose containing models was developed. Using the developed model, model and full-scale experiments were conducted. In the model experiments, the light scattered in the forward and backwards direction by the following model objects: a 20% solution of milk and a 50% solution of whole human blood was investigated. The ability of the developed sensor to noninvasively detect the concentration of glucose in the blood was demonstrated.

© 2013 SPIE