Precision improvement in laser self-mixing nanoparticle sizing with all phase FFT amplitude correction

Abstract

As a well-known noncontact optical sensing technique, laser self-mixing interferometry (SMI) exhibits outstanding merits of low-cost, self-alignment, compactness, and high sensitivity, and it has been applied to typical geometrical quantity measurements, tomography, object imaging, as well as nanoparticle sizing. In SMI nanoparticle detection, as a result of Brownian motion, laser beam stochastically interacts with each particle in the illuminating volume, producing self-mixed signals with Lorentz shape power spectra, whose spectral broadening width is directly related with particle sizes. In general, FFT is always the first choice to obtain signals’ power spectra, but due to the influence of spectrum leakage, the heights of spectral lines may rise or fall and then change original Lorentz shapes and further increase sizing errors. Here, an all phase FFT (apFFT) method has been proposed to greatly suppress spectrum leakage, correct spectral line heights and further improve nanoparticle sizing errors for Rayleigh scattering cases. The apFFT method proposed is advantageous to developing precise SMI particle sensors or instruments, which may be applicable to chemical or medical applications.