Fast laser speckle suppression with an intracavity diffuser
Simon Mahler, Yaniv Eliezer, Hasan Yılmaz, Asher A. Friesem, Nir Davidson, Hui Cao
Abstract
Abstract Fast speckle suppression is crucial for time‐resolved full‐field imaging with laser illumination. Here, we introduce a method to accelerate the spatial decoherence of laser emission, achieving speckle suppression in the nanosecond integration time scale. The method relies on the insertion of an intracavity phase diffuser into a degenerate cavity laser to break the frequency degeneracy of transverse modes and broaden the lasing spectrum. The ultrafast decoherence of laser emission results in the reduction of speckle contrast to 3% in less than 1 ns.
Topics & Concepts
Speckle patternQuantum decoherenceOpticsLaserLasing thresholdNanosecondUltrashort pulseMaterials scienceDiffuser (optics)OptoelectronicsPhysicsQuantumLight sourceQuantum mechanicsRandom lasers and scattering mediaAdvanced Optical Sensing TechnologiesAdvanced Optical Imaging Technologies