Speckle reduction in laser picoprojector by combining optical phase matrix with twin green lasers and oscillating MEMS mirror for coherence suppression

Abstract

The combined speckle reduction method is proposed and designed for laser picoprojectors taking small size, high optical power, and good image preservation into account. An optical phase matrix, twin green lasers, and an oscillating MEMS scanning mirror are used to suppress the speckle by reducing spatial and temporal coherences. The optical phase matrix is designed using a 5 µm pixel pitch based on Matlab simulation results and fabricated by imprinting. The twin green lasers with a modulation configuration and an oscillating MEMS scanning mirror are also applied taking the resolution of the display image and the scanning frequency of the MEMS scanning mirror into account. From the experimental results, it is confirmed that the speckle contrast is reduced by 47.47% by the optical phase matrix, 27.93% by the twin green lasers, and 18.89% by the oscillating MEMS scanning mirror. Finally, the combined speckle contrast results in a speckle reduction efficiency of 53.80% with a relatively small optical power loss of 18.21%.