Measuring picometre-level displacements using speckle patterns produced by an integrating sphere.

Sci Rep

SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, KY16 9SS, UK.

Published: September 2023

As the fields of optical microscopy, semiconductor technology and fundamental science increasingly aim for precision at or below the nanoscale, there is a burgeoning demand for sub-nanometric displacement and position sensing. We show that the speckle patterns produced by multiple reflections of light inside an integrating sphere provide an exceptionally sensitive probe of displacement. We use an integrating sphere split into two independent hemispheres, one of which is free to move in any given direction. The relative motion of the two hemispheres produces a change in the speckle pattern from which we can analytically infer the amplitude of the displacement. The method allows a noise floor of 5 pm/[Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text]) above 30 Hz in a facile implementation, which we use to measure oscillations of 17 pm amplitude ([Formula: see text]) with a signal to noise ratio of 3.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10480476PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-40518-6DOI Listing

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