Smart optical coherence tomography for ultra-deep imaging through highly scattering media

Multiple scattering of waves in disordered media is a nightmare whether it is for detection or imaging purposes. So far, the best approach to get rid of multiple scattering is optical coherence tomography. This basically combines confocal microscopy and coherence time gating to discriminate ballistic photons from a predominant multiple scattering background. Nevertheless, the imaging-depth range remains limited to 1 mm at best in human soft tissues because of aberrations and multiple scattering. We propose a matrix approach of optical imaging to push back this fundamental limit. By combining a matrix discrimination of ballistic waves and iterative time reversal, we show, both theoretically and experimentally, an extension of the imaging-depth limit by at least a factor of 2 compared to optical coherence tomography. In particular, the reported experiment demonstrates imaging through a strongly scattering layer from which only 1 reflected photon out of 1000 billion is ballistic. This approach opens a new route toward ultra-deep tissue imaging.