Highly coherent illumination for imaging through opacity

Abstract Imaging through opacity has captured extensive attention in recent years for its promising applications in bioimaging systems and information extraction from scrambled light. Many optimized image reconstruction algorithms and advanced imaging scenarios are introduced and intensively studied in previous researches. However, intensity-based image reconstruction under the highly coherent light illumination is still a major challenge due to the strong interference effect. Here, we demonstrate that imaging through opacity can be implemented efficiently even under the highly coherent illumination with the aid of an intensity-based/incoherent deconvolution algorithm. Based on the experimental and theoretical analysis, we find the small phase correlation length of the diffuser plays a pivotal role in enabling the incoherent deconvolution operation for highly coherent illumination. Furthermore, the deconvolution algorithm shows insensitivity to the light coherence since the spatial frequencies of the object are well preserved in the spatial frequency spectrum of the speckle pattern. Our results provide a phase-information-free scheme for imaging through opacity under the highly coherent illumination. We anticipate our work would motivate the deep understanding of imaging using highly coherent illumination, increase the structural robustness of imaging systems and facilitate wavelength-sensitive imaging applications.