Patent Document ID: 4810875
Application ID: 07009447
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for the examination of the interior of a semi-opaque object by collimated light means comprised of the following steps: A. forming a narrow, collimated beam of light; B. passing such beam into an optical transmission means; C. coupling said optical transmission means onto said semi-opaque object at a specified entrance surface region using a refractive index matching means, suitably selected to minimize the refractive index discontinuity between that of said optical transmission means and that of said semi-opaque object; D. coupling that fraction of said light which has scattered within and impinged upon a specified surface exit region of said object, by similar refractive index matching means to an optical collection means at said specified surface region; E. coupling said optical collection means into a light amplification means which preserves the spatial intensity variations incident thereon and collected at said specified surface region by said optical collection means; F. impinging said amplified light on an array of photodetectors; G. converting each detected intensity corresponding to each photodetector element of said array into a numerical value and then transmitting each such value into a memory storage means; H. processing and analyzing said numerical values in said memory means by computer means; and characterizing thereby the region of said examined object causing the spatial variation of said intensity values; I. repeating said measurement at different orientations of said incident coupled optical transmission means and said coupled optical collection means with respect to said specified surface regions; J. varying said entrance and exit surface regions and repeating steps G, H and I; K. characterizing thereby the inhomogeneities within said semi-opaque object causing the spatial variations of the said detected intensity values.