Achievable spatial resolution of time-resolved transillumination imaging systems which utilize multiply scattered light

We describe theoretically and measure experimentally the best achievable time-dependent point-spread-function of light in the presence of strong turbidity. We employ the rescaled isotropic-scattering solution to the time-dependent radiative transfer equation to examine three mathematically distinct limits of photonic transport: the ballistic, quasidiffuse, and diffuse limits. In all cases we follow the constraint that a minimum fractional number of launched photons must be received before the time-integrating detector is turned off. We show how the achievable ballistic resolution maps into the diffusion-limited achievable resolution, and verify this behavior experimentally by using a coherently amplified Raman polarization gate imaging system. We are able to quantitatively fit the measured best achievable resolution by empirically rescaling the scattering length in the model. © 1996 The American Physical Society.