Image Transmission Through an Opaque Material

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that by measuring complex transmission channels in opaque media, it is possible to coherently transmit and recover images with high fidelity, overcoming traditional limitations of scattering and opacity.

Contribution

The authors show how to exploit mesoscopic optical transmission channels to enable high-fidelity image transmission through opaque materials, a novel approach in optical imaging.

Findings

High-fidelity image recovery through opaque media

Measurement of complex mesoscopic transmission channels

Overcoming scattering limitations in optical imaging

Abstract

Optical imaging relies on the ability to illuminate an object, collect and analyze the light it scatters or transmits. Propagation through complex media such as biological tissues was so far believed to degrade the attainable depth as well as the resolution for imaging because of multiple scattering. This is why such media are usually considered opaque. Very recently, we have proven that it is possible to measure the complex mesoscopic optical transmission channels that allows light to traverse through such an opaque medium. Here we show that we can optimally exploit those channels to coherently transmit and recover with a high fidelity an arbitrary image, independently of the complexity of the propagation.