Scattering invariant modes of light in complex media

Random scattering of light in disordered media is an intriguing phenomenon of fundamental relevance to various applications 1 . Although techniques such as wavefront shaping and transmission matrix measurements 2 , 3 have enabled remarkable progress in advanced imaging concepts 4 – 11 , the most suc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature photonics 2021-06, Vol.15 (6), p.431-434
Main Authors: Pai, Pritam, Bosch, Jeroen, Kühmayer, Matthias, Rotter, Stefan, Mosk, Allard P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624
639/624/1107/510
639/766/930/2735
Applied and Technical Physics
Complex media
Eigenvalues
Imaging
Invariants
Letter
Light
Photonics
Photons
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Quantum Physics
Scattering
Wave fronts
Zinc oxides
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Summary:Random scattering of light in disordered media is an intriguing phenomenon of fundamental relevance to various applications 1 . Although techniques such as wavefront shaping and transmission matrix measurements 2 , 3 have enabled remarkable progress in advanced imaging concepts 4 – 11 , the most successful strategy to obtain clear images through a disordered medium remains the filtering of ballistic light 12 – 14 . Ballistic photons with a scattering-free propagation are, however, exponentially rare and no known method has been able to increase their proportion. To address these limitations, we introduce and experimentally implement a new set of optical states that we term scattering invariant modes, whose transmitted field pattern is the same, irrespective of whether they scatter through a disordered sample or propagate ballistically through a homogeneous medium. We observe scattering invariant modes that are only weakly attenuated in dense scattering media, and show in simulations that their correlations with the ballistic light can be used to improve imaging inside scattering materials. The concept of scattering invariant modes is introduced to produce the same transmitted field profiles through a multiple scattering sample and a reference medium. Their correlations with the ballistic light can be used to improve imaging inside scattering materials.
ISSN:1749-4885
1749-4893
DOI:10.1038/s41566-021-00789-9