ACHIEVABLE SPATIAL-RESOLUTION OF TIME-RESOLVED TRANSILLUMINATION IMAGING-SYSTEMS WHICH UTILIZE MULTIPLY SCATTERED-LIGHT

We describe theoretically and measure experimentally the best achievab le time-dependent pointspread-function of light in the presence of str ong turbidity. We employ the rescaled isotropic-scattering solution to the time-dependent radiative transfer equation to examine three mathe matically distinct limits of photonic transport: the ballistic, quasid iffuse, and diffuse limits. In all cases we follow the constraint that a minimum fractional number of launched photons must be received befo re the time-integrating detector is turned off. We show how the achiev able ballistic resolution maps into the diffusion-limited achievable r esolution, and verify this behavior experimentally by using a coherent ly amplified Raman polarization gate imaging system. We are able to qu antitatively fit the measured best achievable resolution by empiricall y rescaling the scattering length in the model.