Coherent enhancement of optical remission in diffusive media
Author(s)
Date
2022-10-03Source Title
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Electronic ISSN
0027-8424
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Volume
119
Issue
41
Pages
1 - 6
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
4
views
views
0
downloads
downloads
Abstract
Remitted waves are used for sensing and imaging in diverse diffusive media from the Earth’s crust to the human brain. Separating the source and detector increases the penetration depth of light, but the signal strength decreases rapidly, leading to a poor signal-to-noise ratio. Here, we show, experimentally and numerically, that wavefront shaping a laser beam incident on a diffusive sample enables an enhancement of remission by an order of magnitude at depths of up to 10 transport mean free paths. We develop a theoretical model which predicts the maximal remission enhancement. Our analysis reveals a significant improvement in the sensitivity of remitted waves to local changes of absorption deep inside diffusive media. This work illustrates the potential of coherent wavefront control for noninvasive diffuse wave imaging applications, such as diffuse optical tomography and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.