Simulation and Experiment of Speckle Reduction by the Beam Splitting Method on a Pico-Projection System

Abstract

An optical scheme using two correlationless beams to suppress the speckle of the pico-projection system is proposed. By using two broadband beam splitters (BBS) and two high reflection mirrors, the originally incident laser beam is split into two beams. The mutual correlation coefficient between two split beams is very close to zero. We use the haze reflection based on the random scattering model to simulate light reflected from the rough surface. In simulations, light is respectively reflected from the same size flat and rough surfaces and both recorded images are compared with each other. The image from flat surface is very clear on the detector plane. On the contrary, the image from rough surface is very fuzzy and the edge is hard to figure out. The simulations show that the speckle contrast ratio (CR) is reduced from 1.0 to 0.707. We find out a solution of the speckleCRless than 0.71 when the distance between two BBSs is 2.4 mm and the thickness of each BBS is 0.4 mm. Finally, we carry out an experiment and verify the simulating results. By our analysis from the experimental data, the speckleCRcan be reduced about 25% which is close to the theoretical value of 29.3%.