Rapid wide-field imaging through scattering media by digital holographic wavefront correction

Imaging through scattering media has been a long standing challenge in many disciplines. One of the promising solutions to address the challenge is the wavefront shaping technique, in which the phase distortion due to a scattering medium is corrected by a phase modulation device such as a spatial light modulator (SLM). However, the wide-field imaging speed is limited either by the feedback-based optimization to search the correction phase or by the update rate of SLMs. In this report, we introduce a new method called digital holographic wavefront correction, in which the correction phase is determined by a single-shot off-axis holography. The correction phase establishes the so-called "scattering lens", which allows any objects to be imaged through scattering media; in our case, the "scattering lens" is a digital one established through computational methods. As no SLM is involved in the imaging process, the imaging speed is significantly improved. We have demonstrated that moving objects behind scattering media can be recorded at the speed of 2.8 fps with each frame corrected by the updated correction phase while the image contrast is maintained as high as 0.9. The image speed can potentially reach the video rate if the computing power is sufficiently high. We have also demonstrated that the digital wavefront correction method also works when the light intensity is low, which implicates its potential usefulness in imaging dynamic processes in biological tissues.