Reconstruction of static line images with reduced speckle using interlaced holograms for holographic laser cutting

Abstract

A hologram can be used for high-power laser processing applications such as cutting, drilling, patterning, or welding. However, not much progress has been made in cutting application compared to the others, because it requires optical reconstruction of static and uniform line images using holograms which have a high damage threshold. These static and uniform line images are difficult to be reconstructed with a single hologram, since they usually suffer from speckle between neighboring spots. We propose a method to reconstruct reduced-speckle static line images using two interlaced holograms which reconstruct odd and even pixel line images, corresponding to two orthogonal polarizations. Then, the two orthogonally polarized line images are superposed for interlacing in the image plane. The proposed method was studied by numerical simulations and demonstrated experimentally. The experimental results show that speckle contrast decreased by about onethird, compared to that of a non-interlaced hologram. This method can be applied also for complex-shaped images which include curved lines as well as straight lines, and we have a plan for laser cutting with this method in the near future