Characterization of the angular memory effect of scattered light in biological tissues

Abstract: High resolution optical microscopy is essential in neuroscience but suffers from scattering in biological tissues. It therefore grants access to superficial layers only. Recently developed techniques use scattered photons for imaging by exploiting angular correlations in transmitted light and could potentially increase imaging depths. But those correlations (`angular memory effect') are of very short range and, in theory, only present behind and not inside scattering media. From measurements on neural tissues and complementary simulations, we find that strong forward scattering in biological tissues can enhance the memory effect range (and thus the possible field-of-view) by more than an order of magnitude compared to isotropic scattering for $\sim$1\,mm thick tissue layers.