title: Enhanced adaptive focusing through semi-transparent media.
abstract: Adaptive optics can focus light through opaque media by compensating the random phase delay acquired while crossing a scattering curtain. The technique is commonly exploited in many fields, including astrophysics, microscopy, biomedicine and biology. A turbid lens has the capability of producing foci with a resolution higher than conventional optics, however it has a fundamental limit: to obtain a sharp focus one has to introduce a strongly scattering medium in the optical path. Indeed a tight focusing needs strong scattering and, as a consequence, high resolution focusing is obtained only for weakly transmitting samples. Here we describe a novel method allowing to obtain highly concentrated optical spots even by introducing a minimum amount of scattering in the beam path with semi-transparent materials. By filtering the pseudo-ballistic components of the transmitted beam we are able to experimentally overcome the limits of the adaptive focus resolution, gathering light on a spot with a diameter which is one third of the original speckle correlation function.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, N. Plastira 100, Vasilika Vouton, 70013, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
authors.forename: Diego
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Di Battista
authors.affiliation: Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, N. Plastira 100, Vasilika Vouton, 70013, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
authors.forename: Giannis
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zacharakis
authors.affiliation: Center for Life Nano Science@Sapienza, Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Viale Regina Elena, 291 00161 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leonetti