Abstract
We rigorously account for the effects of multiparticle light scattering from a fractal sphere aggregate in order to simulate the optical properties of a soft biological tissue, human skin. Using a computational method that extends Mie theory to the multisphere case, we show that multiparticle scattering significantly affects the computed optical properties, resulting in a reduction in both scattering coefficient and anisotropy for the wavelengths simulated, as well as a significantly enhanced forward peak in the simulated phase function. The model is extended to incorporate the contribution of Rayleigh scatterers, which we show is required to obtain reasonable agreement with experimentally measured optical properties of skin tissue.