Laser speckle reduction via colloidal-dispersion-filled projection screens

We use projection screens filled with colloidal dispersions to reduce laser speckle in laser projection systems. Laser light is multiply scattered at the globules of the colloidal dispersion's internal phase, which do Brownian movement. The integration time of the human eye causes a perception of a reduced laser speckle contrast because of temporal averaging. As a counteracting effect, blurring of projected images occurs in the colloidal dispersion, which degrades image quality. We measure and compare speckle reduction and blurring of three different colloidal dispersions filled into transmission screens of different thicknesses. We realized a high speckle contrast reduction at simultaneously low blurring with a thin screen filled with a highly scattering colloidal dispersion with forward-peaked scattering. We realize speckle contrast values below 3% at acceptable blurring. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America