Time of flight

Definition: The time of flight is the time spent by a photon to migrate through tissue from the source to the detector. In time-domain fNIRS, light attenuation is measured by recording the time-of-flight (TOF) of photons through the tissue. A laser is used to emit short pulses of light, and the arrival time of the photons at the detectors is measured. From the resulting distribution, absorption and scattering parameters can be derived.

Alternative definition:

Synonym:

References:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.05.106

https://doi.org/10.1364/boe.396585

Related terms: Time domain fNIRS, Temporal point spread function