Speckle fields generated with binary diffusers and synthetic pupils implemented on a spatial light modulator

Digitally controllable Gaussian speckle fields were experimentally generated by implementing binary diffusers and synthetic pupils on a liquid crystal spatial light modulator. The synthetic pupil comprises a Ronchi phase mask and a proper filtering of its diffraction orders. The binary diffuser is displayed inside an aperture defined onto the Ronchi phase mask. We demonstrated that this implementation replaces the need of using a ground glass and a physical pupil. In this way, the average speckle size, the statistical independence among the generated speckle patterns, and the average intensity distribution can be dynamically controlled. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America