Time-domain polarization difference imaging of objects in turbid water

In this paper, we demonstrate time-domain polarization difference (TPD) imaging for target recognition in a turbid medium. The simulated results show that compared with conventional polarization difference (PD) imaging, when backscattered photons from the medium are polarization-preserving under polarized light illumination, higher image contrast and deeper detection range can be obtained by the TPD imaging method. For conventional PD imaging systems, backscattered light is imaged as noise to degrade the image. When TPD imaging is used, the effect of backscattered light can be effectively eliminated in time domain. This study opens interesting perspectives for the development of optical imaging in the turbid system.