Velocity sensitivity of laser-speckle velocimeters

The method of increasing sensitivity in laser speckle velocimetry is studied theoretically and experimentally. The sensitivity of the velocimeters is shown to have a fairly strong dependence on the optical configurations, such as the diameter of the incident laser beam-waist, or its position relative to the moving diffuse object to be measured. It is pointed out that the minimal sensitivity appears in the configuration where the converging incident light beam produces its beam waist at the position of a detecting pinhole. In some cases when using image speckles to obtain finite spatial resolution in the object plane, an optimum condition exists which gives the maximal sensitivity. The sensitivity of a laser speckle velocimeter using a spatial filter and two point cross-correlation technique is also discussed.