Distortion-free imaging through inhomogeneities by selective spatial filtering

Distortion-free imaging through a system with aberrations is possible for a certain class of input. The input spatial spectrum must be restricted to spatial frequencies which are equally affected by the aberrations (i.e., which experience identical phase shifts mod2pi). We demonstrate experimentally that if the aberrations can be localized in the pupil plane, an arbitrary input can be prefiltered to produce a distribution which is imaged without distortion by an aberrant system. Equivalently, the output of the system can be postfiltered to select the information which was imaged without distortion.