Characterization of the spectral memory effect of scattering media

The optical memory effect is an interesting phenomenon exploited for deep-tissue optical imaging. Besides the widely studied memory effects in the spatial domain to accelerate point scanning speed, the spectral memory effect is also important in multispectral wavefront shaping. Although being theoretically analyzed for decades, quantitative studies of spectral memory effect on a variety of scattering media including biological tissue were rarely reported. In practice, quantifying the range of the spectral memory effect is essential in efficiently shaping broadband light, as it determines the optimum spectral resolution in realizing spatiotemporal focus through scattering media. In this work, we analyze the spectral memory effect based on a diffusion model. An explicit analytical expression involves the illumination wavelength, the diffusion constant, and the sample thickness is derived, which is consistent with the one in the literature. We experimentally quantified the range of spectral correlation for two types of biological tissue, tissue-mimicking phantoms with different concentrations, and diffusers. Specifically, for tissue-mimicking phantoms with calibrated scattering parameters, we show that a correction factor of more than 20 should be inserted, indicating that the range of spectral correlation is much larger than one would expect. This finding is particularly beneficial to multispectral wavefront shaping, as stringent requirements on the spectral resolution could be alleviated by at least one order of magnitude.