Comparative study of two ballistic imaging methods based on the femtosecond optical Kerr gate and spatial filtering

We demonstrated two ballistic imaging for an object hidden behind turbid media using the optical Kerr gate (OKG) and spatial filtering (SF), respectively. The influence of the scattering parameters of the turbid media on the image contrast was investigated. The experimental results showed that the image contrast of the SF imaging decreased significantly with increasing optical density and scattering particle size of the turbid media. Compared to the SF imaging, the OKG imaging showed a higher and more stable image contrast as scattering photons in the optical gated imaging case were more effectively eliminated. c 2014 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)