Low spatial coherence electrically pumped semiconductor laser for speckle-free full-field imaging

Abstract

There has been an intense search for the ideal light sources for high-speed, full-field imaging applications ranging from next-generation microscopes and laser projectors to digital holography and photolithography. Traditional lasers, although providing the required brightness (i.e., power per mode), exhibit high spatial coherence, which introduces coherent artifacts such as speckle, corrupting image formation. At the other extreme, low spatial coherence sources such as thermal sources and light emitting diodes (LEDs) avoid speckle but lack sufficient power per mode for high-speed imaging. In this work, we demonstrate a new type of semiconductor laser based on a chaotic cavity, which combines low spatial coherence with high power per mode. Such a laser could enable a wide range of full-field imaging applications.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jan 20, 2015
Source ID
10.1073/pnas.1419672112

Entities

People

  • A. Douglas Stone
  • Alexander Cerjan
  • Brandon Redding
  • Hui Cao
  • Michael A. Choma
  • Minjoo Larry Lee
  • Xue Huang

Organizations

  • Istituto Superiore di Sanità
  • National Science Foundation
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Yale School of Medicine
  • Yale University

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Image Processing and Computer Vision.
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.
  • Wave Propagation and Nonlinear Chaotic Dynamics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Microelectronics