As shown in Fig. 1, fluctuations and scattering are phenomena that appear in various areas ranging from microscopic biological activities on the nanometer scale to atmospheric fluctuations on the kilometer scale, and understanding and overcoming these phenomena will lead to breakthroughs in various academic fields, including life sciences, preventive medicine, information and communication engineering, and astronomy. In biological tissues, structures ranging from tissue-level structures such as blood vessels, bones, and vascular bundles to intracellular organelles such as cell nuclei, mitochondria, and chloroplasts, and macromolecules such as DNA and proteins are tightly intermingled, and light passing through them is diffracted, refracted, and reflected, and appears as scattering. Therefore, the target of observation and manipulation in deep depth is in the biological tissue, the stronger the influence of light becomes、 resulting in significant distortion of the imaging image and inability to efficiently manipulate specific cells. Even with advanced techniques such as multiphoton microscopy, it is difficult to observe at high resolution at depths exceeding 1 mm in the relatively transparent brain and 100 µm in the less transparent liver and plant parts.
Light turbulence is a problem not only in biological imaging and optical manipulation of cellular activity. Atmospheric and atmospheric turbulence through which light passes is also a problem in cutting-edge fields such as spatial optical communications such as large-scale optical communications between ground and satellite, and observational astronomy using ground-based telescopes. Transparency of turbid biological tissues based on optical technology, which are more affected by scattering than the air and atmosphere, would bring about innovative developments in natural science and engineering fields such as information and communication engineering and astronomy. In addition, the use of sound waves and microwaves will enable nondestructive inspection of defects inside concrete, which will lead to assurance of the safety of infrastructure facilities such as bridges and buildings.
Based on the imaging theory through scattering media, which is applicable to multiple scales, various electromagnetic waves such as light and microwaves, and other waves such as sound wave can be used to visualize the interior of structures that have not been visible until now, and to engage in applied research. Based on this, as shown in Fig. 2, we will integrate with various academic fields and strive to bring about change.
