Tomographic imaging of phase objects in turbid media through quantitative estimate of phase of ballistic light

We demonstrate experimental measurement of phase of the ballistic and near-ballistic component of light transmitted through scattering media. This is done through measurement of transport of intensity of the ballistic component whose strength is measured using polarization gating. The measured phase of the ballistic light is inverted using filtered backprojcction algorithm and the reconstructed real refractive index for an optical fiber hidden in a scattering media is presented. (C) 2001 published by Elsevier Science B.V.