Digital optical phase conjugation (DOPC) enables many optical applications by permitting focusing of light through scattering media. However, DOPC systems require precise alignment of all optical components, particularly of the spatial light modulator (SLM) and camera, in order to accurately record the wavefront and perform playback through the use of time-reversal symmetry. We present a digital compensation technique to optimize the alignment of the SLM in five degrees of freedom, permitting focusing through thick scattering media with a thickness of 5 mm and transport scattering coefficient of 2.5 mm − 1 while simultaneously improving focal quality, as quantified by the peak-to-background ratio, by several orders of magnitude over an unoptimized alignment.
In biological applications, optical focusing is limited by the diffusion of light, which prevents focusing at depths greater than ~1 mm in soft tissue. Wavefront shaping aims to extend the focusing depth by compensating for phase distortions induced by scattering. This allows for focusing light through biological tissue beyond the optical diffusion limit through constructive interference. However, due to random motion, scattering of light in tissue is deterministic only within a brief speckle correlation time. In in vivo tissue this speckle correlation time is on the order of milliseconds, thus it is vital to optimize the wavefront within the correlation time.
The speed of wavefront shaping has typically been limited by the time required to measure and display the optimal phase pattern due to the low speeds of cameras, data transfer and processing, and spatial light modulators (SLM). While methods of binary-phase modulation requiring only two images for phase measurement have recently been reported, the majority of studies require a minimum of four frames for full-phase measurement. Here, we present a full-phase digital optical phase conjugation method based on off-axis holography for single-shot optical focusing through scattering media. By using off-axis holography in conjunction with graphics processing unit (GPU) based processing; we take advantage of single-shot full-phase measurement while using parallel computation to quickly reconstruct the phase map. Using this system, we are able to focus light through scattering media with a system latency of approximately 10 milliseconds, on the order of the in vivo speckle correlation time.
Focusing light deep inside and through thick biological tissue is critical to many applications. However, optical scattering prevents light from being focused through thick biological tissue, which restricts biophotonics to a limited depth of about 1 mm. To break this optical diffusion limit, digital optical phase conjugation (DOPC) based wavefront shaping techniques are being actively developed. Previous DOPC systems employed spatial light modulators that modulated either the phase or the amplitude of the conjugate light field. Here, we achieve optical focusing through scattering media by using polarization modulation based generalized DOPC. First, we describe an algorithm to extract the polarization map from the measured scattered field. Then, we validate the algorithm through numerical simulations, and find the focusing contrast achieved by polarization modulation is similar to that achieved by phase modulation, and is higher than those achieved by binary-phase and binary-amplitude modulations. Finally, we build a system using an inexpensive twisted nematic liquid crystal based spatial light modulator, and experimentally demonstrate light focusing through 3-mm thick chicken breast tissue. Since the polarization modulation based SLMs are widely used in displays and are having more and more pixel counts with the prevalence of 4K displays, these SLMs are inexpensive and valuable devices for wavefront shaping. Thus, we anticipate that polarization modulation based SLMs will gain their prevalence in the field of wavefront shaping.
One of the prime limiting factors of optical imaging in biological applications is the diffusion of light by tissue, which prevents focusing at depths greater than the optical diffusion limit (typically ∼1 mm). To overcome this challenge, wavefront shaping techniques that use a spatial light modulator (SLM) to correct the phase of the incident wavefront have recently been developed. These techniques are able to focus light through scattering media beyond the optical diffusion limit. However, the low speeds of typically used liquid crystal SLMs limit the focusing speed. Here, we present a method using a digital micromirror device (DMD) and an electro-optic modulator (EOM) to measure the scattering-induced aberrations, and using a liquid crystal SLM to apply the correction to the illuminating wavefront. By combining phase modulation from an EOM with the DMD’s ability to provide selective illumination, we exploit the DMD’s higher refresh rate for phase measurement. We achieved focusing through scattering media in less than 8 ms, which is sufficiently short for certain in vivo applications, as it is comparable to the speckle correlation time of living tissue.
A major limiting factor of optical imaging in biological applications is the diffusion of light by tissue, preventing focusing at depths greater than ~1 mm in the body. To overcome this issue, phase-based wavefront shaping alters the phase of sections of the incident wavefront to counteract aberrations in phase caused by scattering. This enables focusing through scattering media beyond the optical diffusion limit and increases signal compared to amplitude-based compensation. However, in previous studies, speed of optimization has typically been limited by the use of a liquid crystal spatial light modulator (SLM) for measurement and display. SLMs usually have refresh rates of less than 100 Hz and require much longer than the speckle correlation time of tissue in vivo, usually on the order of milliseconds, to determine the optimal wavefront. Here, we present a phase-based iterative wavefront shaping method based on an onaxis digital micromirror device (DMD) in conjunction with an electro-optic modulator (EOM) for measurement and a fast SLM for display. By combining phase modulation from an EOM with the modal selection of the DMD, we take advantage of DMDs higher refresh rate, approximately 23 kHz, for iterative phase measurement. The slower SLM requires one update for display following the rapid determination of the optimal wavefront via the DMD, allowing for high-speed wavefront shaping. Using this system, we are able to focus through scattering media using 64 modes in under 8 milliseconds, on the order of the speckle correlation time for tissue in vivo.
Optical diffusion in scattering media prevents focusing beyond shallow depths, causing optical imaging and sensing to suffer from low optical intensities, resulting in low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). Here, we demonstrate focusing using a fast binary-amplitude digital micromirror device to characterize the transmission modes of the scattering medium. We then identify and selectively illuminate the transmission modes which contribute constructively to the intensity at the optical focus. Applying this method to photoacoustic flowmetry, we increased the optical intensity at the focus six-fold, and showed that the corresponding increase in SNR allows particle flow to be measured.
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