Time-reversed ultrasonically encoded optical focusing in biological tissue

Abstract

We report an experimental investigation of time-reversed ultrasonically encoded optical focusing in biological tissue. This technology combines the concepts of optical phase conjugation and ultrasound modulation of diffused coherent light. The ultrasonically encoded (or tagged) diffused light from a tissue sample is collected in reflection mode and interferes with a reference light in a photorefractive crystal (used as a phase conjugation mirror) to form a hologram. Then a time-reversed copy of the tagged light is generated and traces back the original trajectories to the ultrasonic focus inside the tissue sample. With our current setup, we can achieve a maximum penetration depth of 5 mm in a chicken breast sample and image optical contrasts within a tissue sample with a spatial resolution approximately equaling 1/√2 of the ultrasound focal diameter.