A team of researchers at Texas A&M University for the first time has demonstrated a new technique for examining microscopic life called random Raman laser emission — a method of create a bright, distortion-free light source that could be used in microscopy, and it could mean scientists could learn more about the secrets of microscopic life.

The problem with modern microscope imaging techniques, which use lasers to provide rapid images with a high-intensity blast of radiation, is that they produce images that are blurred with speckle patterns, which reduce the quality of images in wide-field microscopy.

The researchers at Texas A&M have demonstrated for the first time that the random Raman lasing emission technique can solve this speckling problem by creating a strobe light source that delivers bright and speckle-free images.

The technique could change the way scientists conduct bio-imaging in microscopy, with many new applications possible thanks to this better imaging process should the results hold.

Raman lasing works by causing some sort of diffuse material, such as a powder, to shine laser light, unlike typical lasers that use bouncing photons. Random Raman lasing relies on the light bouncing among the powder particles until there is amplification.

A pulsed emission from random Raman lasers would provide enough intensity for scientists to get a full two-dimensional image in just one pulse.

The speckles come about because of what is known as “high spatial coherence” in conventional lasers. In order to keep the light beams from oscillating together as in traditional lasers, the random Raman laser would position electric fields differently in the light beam, which helps clean up the image.