Maximizing the amount of useful information in complex light scattering - Dorian Bouchet

Optical imaging systems are routinely used for gathering information about our environment, our health, and our universe. However, it remains a critical challenge to retrieve information from inside complex scattering media such as biological tissues or nanostructured devices, because light undergoes a number of unknown scattering and absorption events.

But what do we exactly mean here by the word “information”? Whereas one can be confused by the variety of definitions of this word, I will try to convince you that Fisher’s definition is simple, insightful, and useful. More precisely, we will use this definition to formally quantify the amount of useful information available in the light scattered by any scattering system. This will allow us to devise new measurements strategies that will maximize the amount of useful information delivered to the observer.