Completely passive method of speckle reduction utilizing static multimode optical fibre and two-dimensional diffractive optical element

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we present experimental results on speckle noise suppression using a completely passive method. The passivity of the method is achieved owing to the absence of any mechanical, electronic, or other dynamic influences on the optical scheme elements. In the experiment, a multimode semiconductor 520 ± 5-nm laser with a spectral bandwidth of 2 nm, static two-dimensional (2D) and 2 × 1D diffractive optical elements (DOEs), as well as multimode single-core optical fibre and multimode optical fibre bundle were used. The dependence of the speckle reduction efficiency as a function of the optical fibre type and optical fibre length was measured for different DOEs. A speckle contrast of 0.148 and speckle reduction coefficient of 2.38 were obtained for a 2.5-m-long multimode optical fibre bundle. The experimental results confirmed that it is possible to construct completely passive optical circuits with reduced speckle noises using static multimode optical fibres and diffraction optical elements.