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Choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging

The use of laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) has expanded rapidly for characterizing the motion of scattering particles. Speckle contrast is related to the dynamics of the scattering particles via a temporal autocorrelation function, but the quality of various elements of the imaging system can...

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Autores principales: Postnov, Dmitry D., Cheng, Xiaojun, Erdener, Sefik Evren, Boas, David A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6385248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30796288
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39137-x
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author Postnov, Dmitry D.
Cheng, Xiaojun
Erdener, Sefik Evren
Boas, David A.
author_facet Postnov, Dmitry D.
Cheng, Xiaojun
Erdener, Sefik Evren
Boas, David A.
author_sort Postnov, Dmitry D.
collection PubMed
description The use of laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) has expanded rapidly for characterizing the motion of scattering particles. Speckle contrast is related to the dynamics of the scattering particles via a temporal autocorrelation function, but the quality of various elements of the imaging system can adversely affect the quality of the signal recorded by LSCI. While it is known that the laser coherence affects the speckle contrast, it is generally neglected in in vivo LSCI studies and was not thoroughly addressed in a practical matter. In this work, we address the question of how the spectral width of the light source affects the speckle contrast both experimentally and through numerical simulations. We show that commonly used semiconductor laser diodes have a larger than desired spectral width that results in a significantly reduced speckle contrast compared with ideal narrow band lasers. This results in a reduced signal-to-noise ratio for estimating changes in the motion of scattering particles. We suggest using a volume holographic grating stabilized laser diode or other diodes that have a spectrum of emitted light narrower than ≈1 nm to improve the speckle contrast.
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spelling pubmed-63852482019-02-26 Choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging Postnov, Dmitry D. Cheng, Xiaojun Erdener, Sefik Evren Boas, David A. Sci Rep Article The use of laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) has expanded rapidly for characterizing the motion of scattering particles. Speckle contrast is related to the dynamics of the scattering particles via a temporal autocorrelation function, but the quality of various elements of the imaging system can adversely affect the quality of the signal recorded by LSCI. While it is known that the laser coherence affects the speckle contrast, it is generally neglected in in vivo LSCI studies and was not thoroughly addressed in a practical matter. In this work, we address the question of how the spectral width of the light source affects the speckle contrast both experimentally and through numerical simulations. We show that commonly used semiconductor laser diodes have a larger than desired spectral width that results in a significantly reduced speckle contrast compared with ideal narrow band lasers. This results in a reduced signal-to-noise ratio for estimating changes in the motion of scattering particles. We suggest using a volume holographic grating stabilized laser diode or other diodes that have a spectrum of emitted light narrower than ≈1 nm to improve the speckle contrast. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-02-22 /pmc/articles/PMC6385248/ /pubmed/30796288 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39137-x Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Postnov, Dmitry D.
Cheng, Xiaojun
Erdener, Sefik Evren
Boas, David A.
Choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging
title Choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging
title_full Choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging
title_fullStr Choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging
title_full_unstemmed Choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging
title_short Choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging
title_sort choosing a laser for laser speckle contrast imaging
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6385248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30796288
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39137-x
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