title: Nanoscale fluctuations and surface tension measurements in droplets using phase-resolved low-coherence interferometry.
abstract: A common-path interferometer was designed with rapidly tunable broadband swept laser source, which provides quantitative phase measurements of nanometer scale motions with very high sensitivity. With this setup, we are able to detect the thermal fluctuations in liquid droplets hanging at the end of an optical fiber. The measured nanoscale displacement fluctuations of various droplet surfaces were used to extract the surface tension. This newly developed technique proved the feasibility of noninvasive, fast, phase-resolved dynamic light scattering measurement of fluid mechanical properties.
authors.affiliation: Quantitative Light Imaging Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Ru
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Taewoo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Mustafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mir
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Popescu
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007368:Interferometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008832:Microchemistry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012996:Solutions / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*; D013500:Surface Tension
chemical_list: D012996:Solutions