Light pipe design method and stepper experimentation for interference effects reduction in laser illumination

The use of light pipes is an efficient and low-cost technique to get a homogeneous illumination for laser-gated viewing systems. However, this technique suffers from drawbacks when used with coherent sources like solid-state lasers. Compacting light pipe-based laser illuminators involves working with small light pipe sections, and experiments show that interference fringes appear on the laser illumination profiles. The principle of light pipe homogenization has been reviewed using geometrical optics to understand the phenomenon better, and a pragmatic light pipe design method, based on laser-gated viewing system parameters, is proposed. Another original solution based on optical stepper is studied to reduce both interference fringes and speckle noise to increase the homogeneity of laser illumination profiles.