Iteration of optical time reversal by ultrasonic encoding in biological tissue

1. A method for focusing light within a scattering medium comprising:

illuminating the scattering medium with a sample beam from a coherent light source, wherein the scattering medium comprises an ultrasound focus containing a focused ultrasound wave at a first position;

obtaining a first signal beam emerging from the scattering medium comprising a first ultrasound-modulated wavefront, wherein the first ultrasound-modulated wavefront comprises a portion of the sample beam which has passed through the ultrasound focus at the first position;

recording the first ultrasound-modulated wavefront from the first signal beam;

advancing the ultrasound focus to a second position within the scattering medium;

illuminating the scattering medium with a first phase-conjugated wavefront corresponding to the first ultrasound-modulated wavefront;

obtaining a second signal beam emerging from the scattering medium comprising a second ultrasound-modulated wavefront, wherein the second ultrasound-modulated wavefront comprises a portion of the first phase-conjugated wavefront which has passed through the ultrasound focus at the second position; and

recording the second ultrasound-modulated wavefront from the second signal beam.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising iteratively illuminating a plurality of additional positions in the scattering medium by:

advancing the ultrasound focus to each of a plurality of additional positions within the scattering medium;

illuminating the scattering medium with each of a plurality of additional phase-conjugated wavefronts, wherein:

the first additional phase-conjugated wavefront corresponds to the second ultrasound-modulated wavefront; and

each subsequent phase-conjugated wavefront of the plurality of phase-conjugated wavefronts corresponds to an additional ultrasound-modulated wavefront obtained with the ultrasound focus situated at a previous position;

obtaining each of a plurality of additional signal beams emerging from the scattering medium, wherein each additional signal beam comprises a portion of an additional phase-conjugated wavefront which has passed through the ultrasound focus at each additional position; and

recording each of the plurality of additional ultrasound-modulated wavefronts corresponding to one of the plurality of additional phase-conjugated wavefronts.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the total energy of each phase-conjugated wavefront is greater than or equal to the total energy of its corresponding ultrasound-modulated wavefront.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein each ultrasound-modulated wavefront is recorded on a phase-conjugating device.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the focused ultrasound wave is produced using at least one ultrasound transducer.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the focused ultrasound wave is produced using an array of at least two ultrasound transducers.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein each phase-conjugated wavefront is produced by reading a holographically recorded interference pattern using a phase-conjugate of the reference beam, or by illuminating a spatial light modulator displaying a wavefront of the ultrasound-modulated light with the phase-conjugate of the reference beam.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein any two adjacent positions of the ultrasound focus are separated by a step size of no more than about one transport mean free path.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein a time to move between any two adjacent positions is no more than a speckle decorrelation time.

10. An apparatus for focusing light within a scattering medium comprising:

a coherent light source to emit a sample beam into the scattering medium;

a movable ultrasound transducer to produce a focused ultrasound wave at one of at least two positions;

a phase-conjugating device holographically recording an ultrasound-modulated wavefront as an interference pattern between an ultrasound-encoded portion of the sample beam and a reference beam, and holographically reading the ultrasound-modulated wavefront using a reconstruction beam to produce a phase-conjugated wavefront and delivering the phase-conjugated wavefront to the scattering medium;

an optical assembly to direct the sample beam into the scattering medium at a first position and to direct the phase-conjugated wavefront to the scattering medium at a second position; and

a controller to operate the coherent light source, the movable ultrasound transducer, the optical assembly, and the phase-conjugating device in a coordinated fashion.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein an energy of the phase-conjugated wavefront is greater than or equal to a total energy of the corresponding ultrasound-modulated wavefront.

12. The apparatus of claim 10 , further comprising a detector.

13. The apparatus of claim 10 , further comprising at least one acousto-optic modulator to frequency shift the sample beam by an amount equal to a central frequency of the ultrasound wave.

14. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the phase-conjugating device is a photorefractive material or a digital holography device and a spatial light modulator.

15. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the phase-conjugating device records an interference pattern between the signal beam emitted by the scattering medium and a reference beam and stores the interference pattern as a hologram.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the phase-conjugating device reads the hologram using a reconstruction beam that is a phase-conjugate of the reference beam.

17. A system for focusing light within a scattering medium comprising:

a moveable ultrasound transducer operatively connected to the scattering medium to produce at least one focused ultrasound wave within each of a sequence of focus regions situated within the scattering medium;

a coherent light source;

an optical assembly operatively connected to the coherent light source, the scattering medium, and a phase-conjugating device, wherein the optical assembly receives one or more coherent light beams from the coherent light source, delivers a sample beam into the scattering medium, and delivers a reference beam and a reconstruction beam to the phase-conjugating device;

the phase-conjugating device operatively connected to the scattering medium, wherein the phase-conjugating device:

receives an ultrasound-encoded portion of the sample beam from the scattering medium;

holographically records the ultrasound-modulated wavefront as an interference pattern between the ultrasound-encoded portion of the sample beam and the reference beam;

holographically reads the ultrasound-modulated wavefront using the reconstruction beam to produce a phase-conjugated beam; and

delivers the phase-conjugated beam to the scattering medium; and

a controller operatively connected to the coherent light source, the optical assembly, the phase-conjugating device, and the ultrasound transducer, wherein the controller controls at least one of:

the movement of the ultrasound transducer between each of the sequence of focal regions;

the production of each of the at least one focused ultrasound waves by the ultrasound transducer;

the delivery of the sample beam, the reference beam, and the reconstruction beam by the optical assembly; and

the production of the one or more coherent light beams by the coherent light source.

18. The system of claim 17 , further comprising an acousto-optic modulation device operatively connected to the optical assembly, wherein the acousto-optic modulation device modifies the frequency of either A) the sample beam or B) the reference beam and the reconstruction beam.

19. The system of claim 17 , further comprising a detector operatively connected to the scattering medium, wherein the detector detects a signal emitted from the scattering medium in response to illumination by the phase-conjugated beam.