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Non-invasive single-shot imaging through scattering layers and around corners via speckle correlations

Nature Photonics volume 8, pages 784–790 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Optical imaging through and inside complex samples is a difficult challenge with important applications in many fields. The fundamental problem is that inhomogeneous samples such as biological tissue randomly scatter and diffuse light, preventing the formation of diffraction-limited images. Despite many recent advances, no current method can perform non-invasive imaging in real-time using diffused light. Here, we show that, owing to the ‘memory-effect’ for speckle correlations, a single high-resolution image of the scattered light, captured with a standard camera, encodes sufficient information to image through visually opaque layers and around corners with diffraction-limited resolution. We experimentally demonstrate single-shot imaging through scattering media and around corners using spatially incoherent light and various samples, from white paint to dynamic biological samples. Our single-shot lensless technique is simple, does not require wavefront-shaping nor time-gated or interferometric detection, and is realized here using a camera-phone. It has the potential to enable imaging in currently inaccessible scenarios.

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Figure 1: Non-invasive imaging through strongly scattering layers by speckle correlations: concept and numerical example.
Figure 2: Experimental imaging through a visually opaque optical diffuser and two biological samples.
Figure 3: Non-invasive imaging of objects enclosed between two diffusers.
Figure 4: Single-shot imaging ‘around corners’ using back-scattered light.
Figure 5: Imaging through a visually opaque layer with a camera-phone.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank D. Martina and A. Liutkus for help with the GPU implementation of the algorithm, P. Ducellier for the Nokia Lumia 1020 camera-phone, J. Bertolotti for discussions and D. Andreoli for the spectral decorrelation measurements. This work was funded by the European Research Council (grant no. 278025). O.K. was supported by the Marie Curie Intra-European fellowship for career development (IEF) and a Rothschild fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Langevin, UMR7587 ESPCI ParisTech and CNRS, INSERM ERL U979, 1 Rue Jussieu, Paris, 75005, France

    Ori Katz, Pierre Heidmann, Mathias Fink & Sylvain Gigan

  2. Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, CNRS, Collège de France, 24 rue Lhomond, Paris, 75005, France

    Ori Katz & Sylvain Gigan

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Contributions

O.K. conceived the idea, performed the numerical simulations, wrote the reconstruction algorithm and designed the initial experiments. O.K., P.H. and S.G. discussed the experimental implementation. O.K. and P.H. performed the experiments and analysed the results. O.K, M.F. and S.G. discussed the results. O.K. wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors.

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Correspondence to Ori Katz.

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Katz, O., Heidmann, P., Fink, M. et al. Non-invasive single-shot imaging through scattering layers and around corners via speckle correlations. Nature Photon 8, 784–790 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.189

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