We propose a robust method to suppress laser speckle using a polymer-stabilized liquid crystal (PSLC) device with high initial transmittance. With applied voltage, a large modulation depth has been produced through light scattering because of the refractive index mismatch between the rotated nematic liquid crystals and the polymer networks. By using PSLCs with 5 wt % monomer, a speckle noise reduction rate of approximately 54.7% can be achieved with an applied voltage of 6 V. The lowest speckle contrast of approximately 0.025 with relatively high discrimination from the projected AF image has also been demonstrated through a wedge PSLC cell.
Plasmonic random lasers have been demonstrated in combining dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystals (DD-CLCs) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The DD-CLC laser reveals the lowest threshold and highest slope efficiency through the localized surface plasmon resonance of AgNPs with the best coupling of the emission spectrum of lasing dye and resonance of electron oscillation on the metal surface. Thermal control of the DD-CLC lasers has been achieved to simultaneously shift the long- and short-edge lasing peaks. By the
α
-stable analysis, the DD-CLC random laser (RL) reveals heavy tail distribution with relatively low
α
∼
1.06
to show the Lévy behavior. Owing to its low spatial coherence, the DD-CLC RL has been demonstrated to produce a speckle-reduced image with a lower contrast of about 0.04.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.