Laser speckle and its temporal variability: the implications for biomedical holography

Laser speckle limits the resolution that can be achieved in holography. Time- varying speckle is even more troublesome, as it can destroy the coherence needed to record a hologram or the correlation needed to obtain fringes in holographic interferometry. This paper looks at the problems these effects can cause in biomedical holography and at how these problems might be minimized. Applications of the time-varying speckle itself, some already widely used, others more speculative, are also discussed.