Neural Inverse Scattering with Score-based Regularization

Abstract: Inverse scattering is a fundamental challenge in many imaging applications, ranging from microscopy to remote sensing. Solving this problem often requires jointly estimating two unknowns -- the image and the scattering field inside the object -- necessitating effective image prior to regularize the inference. In this paper, we propose a regularized neural field (NF) approach which integrates the denoising score function used in score-based generative models. The neural field formulation offers convenient flexibility to performing joint estimation, while the denoising score function imposes the rich structural prior of images. Our results on three high-contrast simulated objects show that the proposed approach yields a better imaging quality compared to the state-of-the-art NF approach, where regularization is based on total variation.