Patent ID: 7446875

Claim:
An apparatus for acquiring time-resolved measurements from a sample from optical scanning, comprising: a) pulsed laser light directed to a sample; b) a first detector disposed to detect the light after exiting from the sample, the detected light being in the form of a first temporal point spread function (TPSF); c) a first amplifier to amplify the first TPSF; d) a first analog-to-digital converted (ADC) to directly digitize the first TPSF; e) a first buffer connected to said first ADC; f) a time-pickoff detector to initiate said first ADC to digitize the first TPSF; g) a clock burst generator initiated by said time-pickoff detector to provide conversion timing to said first ADC; and h) a computer programmed to fit the digitized first TPSF to a theoretical curve to extract its amplitude, and attenuation and scattering coefficients.