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Ultrafast optics

Focusing through scattering media

Nature Photonics volume 5, pages 332–334 (2011)Cite this article

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A scattering medium such as biological tissue distorts the propagation of light pulses in both space and time, making tasks such as focusing and imaging problematic. Fortunately, careful manipulation of the light field's spatial phase prior to entering the medium can help mitigate such distortions and open new prospects for nonlinear microscopy.

The scattering of waves propagating through inhomogeneous media is of interest across diverse areas of physics and engineering, including acoustics, radiofrequency wireless communication, optics and electron transport. In the optical domain, scattering-induced wavefront distortions limit focusing ability and degrade image quality. Adaptive optics can be used to address weak phase aberrations, such as those encountered in free-space optical communications and astronomical imaging through the atmosphere. However, compensating for the distortions that occur in strongly scattering media such as biological tissue is a more significant challenge.

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Figure 1: Multiple scattering of a coherent input field in an inhomogeneous medium gives rise to a noise-like speckle field.
Figure 2: The temporal speckle at any position within the medium is a random superposition of contributions from different points on the input surface.

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  1. Andrew M. Weiner is at Purdue University, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA,

    Andrew M. Weiner

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  1. Andrew M. Weiner
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Correspondence to Andrew M. Weiner.

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Weiner, A. Focusing through scattering media. Nature Photon 5, 332–334 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2011.114

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