ENHANCED TIME-RESOLVED IMAGING WITH A DIFFUSION-MODEL OF PHOTON TRANSPORT

Imaging through highly scattering media with transmitted photons with the shortest flight times is limited ultimately by the available numbe r of photons with sufficiently short paths. A method is described that enhances the performance of the time-resolved imaging technique. A le ast-squares fit was obtained between the measured temporal distributio ns of transmitted light and a model of photon transport based on the d iffusion approximation to the radiative transfer theory. Images constr ucted from the model estimates of short-path-length photon intensities provide information on internal structure, with a significantly impro ved signal-to-noise ratio compared with those that would be obtained d irectly from the data.