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Accurate knowledge of the optical properties of turbid media in the light path is important in NIR absorption spectroscopy of biological tissues where multiple scattering complexes the collected light signals due to the non-uniform tissue architecture. Several approaches such as time resolved spectroscopy and spatially resolved spectroscopy have been proposed to measure the bulk optical properties of turbid media. Among them, double integrating sphere (DIS) measurements are recognized as the "golden standard" for in vitro optical properties measurement of turbid media because of its high accuracy and robustness in different conditions. A DIS system is convenient to measure the in vitro optical properties of turbid media like intralipid solutions and biological tissues, since it measures the diffuse reflectance and transmittance simultaneously. However, DIS measurements have been mostly limited to the optical window region (400-1000 nm) or suffered from low signal levels on the detectors due to the absorption by water in the NIR region. In this study, we developed a DIS system for optical property measurement in the 1300-2350 nm region based on a novel wavelength tunable spectroscopic setup which incorporates a high power broadband supercontinuum laser and a high precision monochromator. With this system, optical properties of intralipid solutions were measured in the wavelength region of 1300-2350nm.

Food quality is critically determined by its microstructure and composition. These properties could be quantified noninvasively by means of optical properties (absorption and reduced scattering coefficients) of the food samples. In this research, a spatially-resolved spectroscopy setup based on a fiber-optic probe was developed for acquiring spatiallyresolved diffuse reflectance of three sugar foams with different designed microstructures in the range 500 - 1000 nm. A model for light propagation in turbid media based on diffusion approximation for solving the radiative transport equation was employed to derive optical properties (absorption and reduced scattering coefficients) of these foams. The accuracy of this light propagation model was validated on four liquid phantoms with known optical properties. The obtained results indicated that the optical properties estimation was successfully validated on these liquid phantoms. The estimated reduced scattering coefficients s' of the foams clearly showed the effect of foaming time on their microstructures. The acquired absorption coefficients a were also in good agreement with the designed ingredients of these sugar foams. The research results clearly support the potential of spatially-resolved spectroscopy for nondestructive food quality inspection and process monitoring in the food industry.