Extreme laser speckle

[rjlittlefield]

I was just playing around with a laser pointer tonight, using it to axially illuminate a small black beetle by bouncing the laser beam off a 45° inclined cover slip whilst watching through a 10X NA 0.30 objective.

The result was some interesting abstracts.

full frame


crop


These are HDR images, constructed using Photoshop CS5, File > "Merge to HDR Pro", from four images of exposure times ranging over a 75:1 range.

What's particularly interesting to me about these images is that due to the height of the inclined cover slip, I couldn't get the objective down low enough to focus so the subject is just a complete blur in normal light. I would show you the view, but basically there's nothing to see -- it's like looking at clouds through fog. What we're seeing here is entirely a speckle pattern, formed by the laser beam interfering with itself before and after reflection from the beetle. Short of like a hologram, I guess, though I'm far from clear that it would be possible to reconstruct anything from a capture like this.

--Rik

[yanyading]

Sir, do you think this laser improved the resolution or not, thanks.
_________________
--
UV is the Key to High Resolution Microscopy

[rjlittlefield]

[yanyading]

Thanks sir!
_________________
--
UV is the Key to High Resolution Microscopy