Self-propelling bacteria mimic coherent light decorrelation

Opt Express. 2015 Apr 6;23(7):9388-96. doi: 10.1364/OE.23.009388.

Abstract

We show here that live e-coli bacterial culture, thanks to the self-propelling feature, can significantly reduce the coherent noise. In fact, the typical self-propelled drive of such microorganisms provides enough time diversity in speckle patterns. Optical properties of a bacteria suspension have been investigated and analyzed thus showing that it behaves as a quite good optical speckle decorrelation device. Samples with different bacteria densities have been studied. The decorrelation effect has been demonstrated by probing the imaging performance in through transmission in coherent microscope configuration.