Nanoscale fluctuations and surface tension measurements in droplets using phase-resolved low-coherence interferometry

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.