Non-invasive single-shot recovery of point-spread function of a memory effect based scattering imaging system

Abstract

Accessing the point-spread function (PSF) of a complex optical system is important for a variety of imaging applications. However, placing an invasive point source is often impractical, and estimating it blindly with multiple frames is slow and requires a complex non-linear optimization. Here, we introduce a simple single-shot method to non-invasively recover the accurate PSF of an isoplanatic imaging system, in the context of multiple light scattering. Our approach is based on the reconstruction of any unknown sparse hidden object using the autocorrelation imaging technique, followed by a deconvolution with a blur kernel derived from the statistics of a speckle pattern. A deconvolution on the camera image then retrieves the accurate PSF of the system, enabling further imaging applications. We demonstrate numerically and experimentally the effectiveness of this approach compared to previous deconvolution techniques.