Abstract

Photorefractive holography can provide a whole-field coherence-gated 3-D imaging technique, applicable through turbid media, which offers a unique mechanism to discriminate against diffuse light. We demonstrate that, since all pixels are interrogated in parallel, it may be implemented at high frame rates as high as 462 frames/s using semi- insulating MQW devices and can utilize light sources of almost arbitrary spatial coherence, including low-cost LED's to achieve sub-5μm sectioning and high power broad stripe multi-mode diode lasers or fibre-coupled diode arrays that can provide several watts of average power with a spectral widths > 3 nm. We discuss design considerations for low coherence imaging configurations, including tilting the energy-fronts using appropriate prisms to compensate for walk-off when interfering low-coherence beams off- axis.

© 2001 Optical Society of America