Scatter-plate microscopy with coherent illumination and moving scattering media
Institut für Technische Optik, Universität Stuttgart, 2 College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education and Guangdong Province, Shenzhen University
Abstract
Information about objects hidden behind scattering media seem to be lost in the intensity pattern of the scattered light. However, due to the optical memory effect the object structure can be reconstructed by correlating the pattern with the point spread function of the scattering medium. Based on this imaging concept, we developed the scatter-plate microscopy (SPM), a lensless high-resolution imaging method, which enables the investigation of microstructures through visually opaque media with variable magnification and variable numerical aperture. So far, the technique was just realized for spatially incoherent illumination. We examined the reasons why the coherence hinders the image retrieval and we demonstrate that scatter-plate microscopy is yet possible even with entirely coherent illumination. Furthermore, we show that high-resolution imaging remains possible even when the scattering medium is not static but also when it is rotating or randomly changing its scattering behaviour.