Intensity correlations between reflected and transmitted speckle patterns

TL;DR

This paper investigates how intensity correlations between reflected and transmitted speckle patterns behave in disordered media, revealing long-range correlations at high optical thickness and coexistence of correlations at low thickness, with implications for wave control.

Contribution

Theoretical analysis of spatial intensity correlations in disordered media, highlighting the persistence and nature of correlations across different optical thicknesses.

Findings

Long-range correlations persist at high optical thickness.

Short-range and long-range correlations coexist at low optical thickness.

Results have implications for wavefront shaping in imaging and sensing.

Abstract

We study theoretically the spatial correlations between the intensities measured at the input and output planes of a disordered scattering medium. We show that at large optical thicknesses, a long-range spatial correlation persists and takes negative values. For small optical thicknesses, short-range and long-range correlations coexist, with relative weights that depend on the optical thickness. These results may have direct implications for the control of wave transmission through complex media by wavefront shaping, thus finding applications in sensing, imaging and information transfer.