Method of imaging through a scattering medium using coherent light

A method of producing an image of an object obscured by a light-scattering medium, comprising

• (a) storing said image in a spectral hole-burning material by:
• (1) providing a spatially coherent source of light of sufficiently broad spectral content to illuminate said spectral hole-burning material, said source of light generating a source beam,
• (2) splitting said source beam into two portions, a reference beam and an object beam,
• (3) directing said reference beam onto said spectral hole-burning material.
• (4) directing said object beam onto said light-scattering medium to generate an image-bearing beam which is by predetermined choice either transmitted through said light-scattering medium or reflected thereby, said image-bearing beam comprising an image portion and an extraneous portion,
• (5) delaying one of said beams relative to the other of said beams for a period of time greater than the coherence time of said beams and less than the phase-decay time of said spectral hole-burning material so that said reference beam arrives at said spectral hole-burning material at a time in between the arrival of said image portion and said extraneous portion of said image-bearing beam, and
• (6) directing said image-bearing beam onto said spectral hole-burning material in a manner so as to interact with said reference beam within a predetermined time related to 1/.DELTA..omega. for a time sufficient to alter said hole-burning material to cause the appearance of a plurality of narrow spectral holes, having a width .DELTA..omega., in its absorption spectrum to thereby expose said hole-burning material and store said image therein;
• and
• (b) subsequently illuminating said exposed hole-burning material with a replica or counter-propagating conjugate replica of said reference beam and observing any diffracted light.