Materials such as paper, paint, and biological tissue are opaque because the light that passes through them is scattered in complicated and seemingly random ways. A new experiment conducted by researchers at the City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI) has shown that it's possible to focus light through opaque materials and detect objects hidden behind them, provided you know enough about the material.
Knowing enough about the way light is scattered through materials would allow physicists to see through opaque substances. In addition, physicists could use information characterizing an opaque material to put it to work as a high quality optical component.
