Laser speckle reduction by multimode optical fiber bundle with combined temporal, spatial, and angular diversity

Abstract

We report significant speckle reduction in a laser illumination system using a vibrating multimode optical fiber bundle. The optical fiber bundle was illuminated by two independent lasers simultaneously. The beams from both lasers were first expanded and collimated and were further divided into multiple beams to illuminate the fiber optic bundle with normal and oblique incidence. Static diffusers were also placed at the input and output faces of the fiber bundle, thus introducing the spatial as well as angular diversity of illumination. Experiments were carried out both in free space and in imaging geometry configuration. Standard deviation, speckle contrast and signal-to-noise ratio of the images were computed, and the results were compared with those of white light illumination. Speckle contrast close to that of white light was obtained using a vibrating fiber bundle with combined temporal, spatial, and angular diversities of the illumination.