Multi-wavelength VCSEL array to reduce speckle

A system comprising:

• a power supply;
• a power controller;
• a light source configured to generate an illumination beam based on power received from the power source and regulated by the power controller, wherein the light source further comprises a single-chip array of at least four vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) sharing common electrodes and configured to produce four or more different emission wavelengths to form the illumination beam, including a first VCSEL having a first laser emission wavelength of the four or more different emission wavelengths, and a second VCSEL having a second laser emission wavelength of the four or more different emission wavelengths different than the first laser emission wavelength;
• an illumination path to direct the illumination beam towards an object;
• and
• a light receiver including one or more photosensitive elements, and imaging optics configured to receive light from the illumination beam reflected from a surface of the object and to image the received light onto the one or more photosensitive elements, wherein the four or more different emission wavelengths are configured to produce a FWHM of between approximately 3 nm and 20 nm for the illumination beam and to reduce a peak to peak speckle noise intensity, as measured by the light receiver, by more than fifty percent as compared to a single emission wavelength illumination beam.