IMAGING THROUGH SCATTERING MEDIA USING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF TRANSMITTED LASER-PULSES

An object consisting of small inhomogeneities embedded in a highly sca ttering solution was imaged using measurements of the time-resolved tr ansmitted intensity of picosecond pulses of near-infrared light. Data acquisition involved translating the object in two orthogonal directio ns across the beam, and recording the temporal distribution of transmi tted light at a series of discrete positions. Images were constructed from the total transmitted light, the first four moments of the tempor al distribution, and from parameters derived from a comparison of the distribution with an analytical model, based on the diffusion approxim ation to the radiative transfer theory. The results show that the opti cal properties along a line-of-sight between source and detector influ ence some of these characteristics more than others.