Speckle imaging with EMCCD cameras

We explore the applicability of electron-multiplying CCD (EMCCD) cameras to the problem of speckle imaging, i.e. imaging through atmospheric turbulence by processing short-exposure images. Signal-to-noise ratio expressions are derived for image and power spectrum estimates obtained from conventional and EMCCD cameras. An unbiased estimator for the bispectrum from EMCCD data is derived. Bispectrum reconstructions of experimental data are obtained. In all cases, the EMCCD´s reduction in effective read noise outweighs the noise introduced by the stochastic gain process.