Optimal Concentration of Light in Turbid Materials

In turbid materials it is impossible to concentrate light into a focus with conventional optics. Recently it has been shown that the intensity on a dyed probe inside a turbid material can be enhanced by spatially shaping the wave front of light before it enters a turbid medium. Here we show that this enhancement is due to concentration of light energy to a spot much smaller than a wavelength. We focus light on a dyed probe sphere that is hidden under an opaque layer. The light is optimally concentrated to a focus which does not exceed the smallest focal area physically possible by more than 68%. A comparison between the intensity enhancements of both the emission and excitation light supports the conclusion of optimal light concentration.Comment: We corrected an ambiguous description of the focus size in our abstract and text pointed out by an anonymous refere

Wavelength dependence of light diffusion in strongly scattering macroporous gallium phosphide

We present time-resolved measurements of light transport through strongly scattering macroporous gallium phosphide at various vacuum wavelengths between 705 nm and 855 nm. Within this range the transport mean free path is strongly wavelength dependent, whereas the observed energy velocity is shown to be independent of the wavelength. We conclude that microscopic resonances, which can strongly slow down the diffusion process in, e.g., granular TiO2, are absent in macroporous gallium phosphide in the wavelength region of concern

Exploiting disorder for perfect focusing

We demonstrate experimentally that disordered scattering can be used to improve, rather than deteriorate, the focusing resolution of a lens. By using wavefront shaping to compensate for scattering, light was focused to a spot as small as one tenth of the diffraction limit of the lens. We show both experimentally and theoretically that it is the scattering medium, rather than the lens, that determines the width of the focus. Despite the disordered propagation of the light, the profile of the focus was always exactly equal to the theoretical best focus that we derived.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Focusing and Compression of Ultrashort Pulses through Scattering Media

Light scattering in inhomogeneous media induces wavefront distortions which pose an inherent limitation in many optical applications. Examples range from microscopy and nanosurgery to astronomy. In recent years, ongoing efforts have made the correction of spatial distortions possible by wavefront shaping techniques. However, when ultrashort pulses are employed scattering induces temporal distortions which hinder their use in nonlinear processes such as in multiphoton microscopy and quantum control experiments. Here we show that correction of both spatial and temporal distortions can be attained by manipulating only the spatial degrees of freedom of the incident wavefront. Moreover, by optimizing a nonlinear signal the refocused pulse can be shorter than the input pulse. We demonstrate focusing of 100fs pulses through a 1mm thick brain tissue, and 1000-fold enhancement of a localized two-photon fluorescence signal. Our results open up new possibilities for optical manipulation and nonlinear imaging in scattering media

Universal optimal transmission of light through disordered materials

We experimentally demonstrate increased transmission of light through strongly scattering materials. Wavefront shaping is used to selectively couple light to the open transport channels in the material, resulting in an increase of up to 44% in the total transmission. The results for each of several hundreds of experimental runs are in excellent quantitative agreement with random matrix theory. Extrapolating our measurements to the limit of perfect wavefront shaping, we find a universal transmission of 2/3, regardless of the thickness of the sample.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Spatial amplitude and phase modulation using commercial twisted nematic LCDs

We present a method for full spatial phase and amplitude control of a laser beam using a twisted nematic liquid crystal display combined with a spatial filter. By spatial filtering we combine four neighboring pixels into one superpixel. At each superpixel we are able to independently modulate the phase and the amplitude of light. We demonstrate experimentally the independent phase and amplitude modulation using this novel technique. Our technique does not impose special requirements on the spatial light modulator and allows precise control of fields even with imperfect modulators.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure