Coherent enhancement of optical remission in diffusive media

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.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Oct 03, 2022
Source ID
10.1073/pnas.2207089119

Entities

People

  • Alexey Yamilov
  • Arthur Goetschy
  • Chia Wei Hsu
  • Hasan Yılmaz
  • Hui Cao
  • Nicholas Bender
  • Pablo Jara Palacios

Organizations

  • Agence Nationale de la Recherche
  • Bilkent University
  • ESPCI Paris, PSL University
  • National Science Foundation
  • Office of Naval Research Global
  • University of Southern California
  • Yale University

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Nanoscale Plasmonic Nanotechnology
  • Oncology
  • Wave Propagation and Nonlinear Chaotic Dynamics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy