3D stochastic interferometer detects picometer deformations and minute dielectric fluctuations of its optical volume

Abstract

Speckle metrology harnesses the interferometric properties of disordered light to achieve remarkable sensitivities. Often relying on time-domain analysis, it is rate-limited by the acquisition of speckle images. In the present work instead, we use a frequency-domain approach which spans 8 to 10 frequency decades up to 100 MHz, and reveals minute changes of speckle decorrelation spectra. We built a 3D stochastic interferometer using a centimeter-sized quartz-powder cavity with arbitrary shape and high Lambertian reflectivity. Filled with a coherent monochromatic photon gas, it creates statistically isotropic and homogeneous 3D interference patterns, whose variations arise from cavity deformations or fluctuations of the dielectric tensor field inside. Speckle decorrelation depends neither on where the perturbation sits nor on where it is measured. With an average 62 m photon transit path and a finesse of 10500, cavity deformations are detected with a power noise floor of 4 x 10(-3) pm(2), i.e., 2.7 pm at 1 kHz. We also demonstrate a 100-fold sensitivity gain compared to conventional light scattering techniques when probing thermal motions of single and multiply scattering colloids. In interferometric metrology, a larger path length leads to enhanced sensitivity. Exploiting the long transport path from multiple scattering in a highly reflective cavity, the authors measure picometric deformations of the cavity size and probe the motional spectrum of colloids inside the cavity.