Abstract

Wavefront shaping could enable focussing light deep inside scattering media, increasing the depth and resolution of imaging techniques like optical microscopy and optical coherence tomography. However, factors like rapid decorrelation times due to microscale motion and thermal variation make focusing in living tissue difficult. A way to ease the requirements could be exploiting prior information provided by memory effects. For example, this might allow partially or wholly scanning a focus. To study this and related ideas, a computational model was developed to simulate the generation and correlations of foci formed by WFS in scattering media. Predictions of the angular memory range were consistent with experimental observations. Furthermore, correlations observed between optical phase maps required to focus at different positions suggested correlation-based priors might enable accelerated focussing. This work could pave the way to faster optical focussing and thus deeper imaging in living tissue.

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