Coherent light despeckling
First Claim
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1. An apparatus comprising:
- a phase modulator for despeckling an electromagnetic beam, the phase modulator having a plurality of regions which have individually controllable phase modulation; and
a controller coupled to the phase modulator for providing a first phase modulation control input to a first of said regions and a second phase modulation control to a second of said regions.
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Abstract
A display device or a receiver device for use with coherent light. A controller applies phase shift values to a multi-region phase array at a frequency sufficiently higher than the flicker fusion rate of the human eye or other intended receiver in order to remove the perception of speckling artifacts which would otherwise appear due to the coherency of the light.
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Citations
44 Claims
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1. An apparatus comprising:
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a phase modulator for despeckling an electromagnetic beam, the phase modulator having a plurality of regions which have individually controllable phase modulation; and
a controller coupled to the phase modulator for providing a first phase modulation control input to a first of said regions and a second phase modulation control to a second of said regions. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A light source comprising:
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a coherent light source;
a phase modulator coupled to the coherent light source, the phase modulator including, a first region, and a second region; and
a controller coupled to the phase modulator to apply first and second phase modulation controls to the first and second regions, respectively. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A video display device comprising:
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a light source for generating a light beam which exhibits coherence across its cross-section;
a phase shifter including, a plurality of regions each for receiving a portion of the light beam and for applying a respective phase shift to that portion of the light beam in response to a respective control input;
a controller coupled to the phase shifter for generating the control inputs;
means, coupled to receive the light beam, for modulating the light beam to insert a content image; and
a display screen, coupled to receive, and for displaying the light beam with content image. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28)
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29. An apparatus comprising:
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a source of coherent light;
a phase array coupled to receive the coherent light, and including a plurality of regions each capable of providing a respective amount of phase shift to light encountering that region; and
a controller coupled to the phase array for providing control inputs to the phase array to vary the amount of phase shift of each region independently and at a frequency higher than the flicker fusion rate of the human eye. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 38)
the control inputs comprise, for each region, a respective value which does not directly indicate phase shift amounts of the respective region; and
the phase array provides phase shifting of each region as a function of the control input for that region and of a previous phase shift amount of that region.
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38. The method of claim 29 wherein the generation of control input values comprises:
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generating a quantum random number stream; and
applying a blue noise filter to the quantum random number stream to generate a stream of control input values having a low-frequency pattern content lower than a predetermined threshold.
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34. A method of displaying a video image, comprising:
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generating coherent light;
receiving the coherent light at a phase array having a plurality of independently-controllable phase shift regions;
generating control input values; and
applying the control input values to the phase shift regions. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37)
at a frequency higher than a flicker fusion rate of a human eye, repeating, the generation of control input values to generate new control input values, and the application of the new control input values to the phase shift regions.
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36. The method of claim 35 wherein the generation of control input values comprises:
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generating a blue noise data stream; and
selecting the control input values from the blue noise data stream.
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37. The method of claim 36 wherein the blue noise data stream comprises a 2-D blue noise data stream.
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39. An apparatus comprising:
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a coherent light source; and
a phase modulation device which, includes a plurality of regions which provide independent amounts of phase shift according to respective input control values applied to each such region, and is coupled to the coherent light source so as to remain substantially in mechanical and rotational alignment with the coherent light source. - View Dependent Claims (40, 41, 42)
a controller coupled to provide the input control values to the phase modulation device.
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41. The apparatus of claim 40 wherein the controller comprises:
a blue noise generator.
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42. The apparatus of claim 41 further comprising:
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a content modulator; and
a display device.
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43. An apparatus comprising:
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a phase modulator for despeckling an electromagnetic beam, the phase modulator having a plurality of regions which have individually controllable phase modulation;
a controller coupled to the phase modulator for providing a first phase modulation control input to a first of said regions and a second phase modulation control to a second of said regions; and
a receiver device coupled to the phase modulator to receive the despeckled electromagnetic beam. - View Dependent Claims (44)
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Specification