Looking around corners and through thin turbid layers in real time with scattered incoherent light

Imaging with optical resolution through turbid media is a long sought-after goal with important applications in deep tissue imaging. Although extensively studied1, this goal was considered impractical until recently. Adaptive-optics techniques2,3, which can correct weak aberrations, are inadequate for turbid samples, where light is scattered to complex speckle patterns with a number of modes greatly exceeding the number of degrees of control4. This conception changed after the demonstration of coherent focusing through turbid media by wavefront-shaping, using spatial light modulators5,6,7. Here, we show that wavefront-shaping enables wide-field imaging through turbid layers with incoherent illumination, and imaging of occluded objects using light scattered from diffuse walls. In contrast to the recently introduced schemes for imaging through turbid media8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15, our technique does not require coherent sources8,9,10,11,12,13,14, interferometric detection10,11,12,13,14, raster-scanning8,9,10,14,15 or off-line reconstruction11,12,13,14,15. Our results bring wavefront-shaping closer to practical applications and realize the vision of looking through ‘walls’ and around corners16. Researchers show that wavefront shaping enables not only real-time widefield imaging through turbid layers with both coherent and incoherent llumination, but also the imaging of objects outside the line-of-sight using light scattered from diffuse walls.