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Applied Physics Letters

High-precision temperature measurement based on weak measurement using nematic liquid crystals

Hongjing Li, Jingzheng Huang, Yu Yang, Yanjia Li, Chen Fang, Guihua Zeng

Published Jun 4, 2018• 56 citations
Publisher

Abstract

High-precision temperature measurements could guarantee temperature difference control accuracy in research and industrial production. To flexibly achieve high precision and large operating temperature range is a crucial problem for temperature measurements. Here, we demonstrate a method for a high-precision temperature measurement based on a weak measurement done using nematic liquid crystals (NLCs). By performing an analysis in the frequency domain, the temperature variation of NLCs is measured using a Sagnac interferometer with appropriate preselection and postselection. In order to obtain a large operating temperature range, there is a relatively large time delay that resulted from NLCs, and an operational principle is deduced explicitly by Jones matrices. In the proposed method, the precision of 3 × 10−6 °C could be achieved by a currently available spectrometer and the operating temperature range can be modulated by the thickness of NLCs. Moreover, the temperature sensitivity of 13.5 nm/°C could be realized for NLCs with 100 μm thickness, which exhibits at least three orders of magnitude larger than the value for other frequency domain analyses.

DOI
10.1063/1.5027117

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High-precision temperature measurements could guarantee temperature difference control accuracy in research and industrial production. To flexibly achieve high precision and large operating temperature range is a crucial problem for temperature measurements. Here, we demonstrate a method for a high-precision temperature measurement based on a weak measurement done using nematic liquid crystals (NLCs). By performing an analysis in the frequency domain, the temperature variation of NLCs is measured using a Sagnac interferometer with appropriate preselection and postselection. In order to obtain a large operating temperature range, there is a relatively large time delay that resulted from NLCs, and an operational principle is deduced explicitly by Jones matrices. In the proposed method, the precision of 3 × 10−6 °C could be achieved by a currently available spectrometer and the operating temperature range can be modulated by the thickness of NLCs. Moreover, the temperature sensitivity of 13.5 nm/°C could be realized for NLCs with 100 μm thickness, which exhibits at least three orders of magnitude larger than the value for other frequency domain analyses.
Abstract High-precision temperature measurement with adjustable operating range is investigated and experimentally demonstrated based on weak measurement in the frequency domain. The operating range of measurement is precisely modulated by introducing a dynamic extra time delay to the post-selection pumped by a femtosecond laser. By choosing appropriate nonlinear materials and the attenuation, the resolution of the optimized extra time delay can be improved by two orders of magnitude over that of a traditional phase delay compensator. Considering the influence of noise in the experiment, the highest precision of 8.03 × 10 −7 °C can be achieved by using a currently available spectrometer. Moreover, the average sensitivity can reach to 38 nm/°C. Taking advantage of the high precision and adjustable operating range, the proposed method has great potential applications in high-precision temperature measurements.
An ultrasensitive third-order optical nonlinearity measurement was theoretically proposed and experimentally demonstrated based on an extended Sagnac interferometer using weak value amplification. The predictable nonlinear refractive index coefficient (n2) of a nonlinear optical sample (nematic liquid crystals) accorded with the experimental result, which confirmed the rationality and feasibility of the proposed method. The sensitivity of the proposed method was associated with the resolution of the spectrometer and the postselection angle. By choosing a currently available spectrometer, the minimum Kerr phase of about 7.5 × 10−7 rad could be measured. Moreover, low cost and convenient operation of this method might have potential application in third-order optical nonlinearity measurements.
High-precision surface-roughness estimation plays an important role in many applications. However, the classical estimating methods are limited by shot noise and can only achieve a precision of 0.1 nm with a white-light interferometer. Here, we propose two weak-measurement schemes to estimate surface roughness through a spectrum analysis and intensity analysis. The estimating precision with the spectrum analysis is about ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}$ nm by using a currently available spectrometer with a resolution of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\lambda}=0.04$ pm and the corresponding sensitivity is better than 0.1 THz/nm. The precision and sensitivity of the light intensity analysis scheme achieved is as high as 0.07 nm and 1/nm, respectively. By introducing a modulated phase, we show that the sensitivity and precision achieved in our schemes can be effectively retained in a wider dynamic range. We further provide the experimental design of a surface profiler based on our schemes. It simultaneously meets the requirements of high precision, high sensitivity, and a wide measurement range, making it a promising practical tool.
High-precision surface roughness estimation plays an important role in many applications. However, the classical estimating methods are limited by shot noise and only can achieve the precision of 0.1 nm with white light interferometer. Here, we propose two weak measurement schemes to estimate surface roughness through spectrum analysis and intensity analysis. The estimating precision with spectrum analysis is about 10−510 ^{-5}10−5 nm by using a currently available spectrometer with the resolution of Δλ=0.04Δλ= 0.04Δλ=0.04 pm and the corresponding sensitivity is better than 0.1 THz/nm. And the precision and sensitivity of the light intensity analysis scheme achieve as high as 0.07 nm and 1/nm, respectively. By introducing a modulated phase, we show that the sensitivity and precision achieved in our schemes can be effectively retained in a wider dynamic range. We further provide the experimental design of the surface profiler based on our schemes. It simultaneously meets the requirements of high precision, high sensitivity, and wide measurement range, making it to be a promising practical tool.
Abstract High precision phase estimation is at the core of modern physics and practical applications. We investigate a method for high precision phase estimation via inserting a reference state which enables weak measurement technique to be used in wide dynamic range. A reference phase is introduced artificially to offset the time delay between preselection state and reference state. The sensitivity of measured phase and the linear dynamic range are controllable by adjusting reference phase. Moreover, an arbitrary postselection in measurement is applicable by choosing appropriate reference phase. This method has merits of controllable sensitivity and wide dynamic range, which shows great potential practical applications in high precision phase measurement.
Nematic order parameter S is one of the most crucial material parameters of the nematic phase, which governs all of the material's anisotropic properties. The enhancement of its measurement precision has always been a great concern. In this Letter, a weak measurement scheme with a modified shift pointer is presented to achieve an ultrasensitive probe of S or the director's orientational angle θ. Using this scheme, we have demonstrated a real-time monitoring of the orientational process of cellulose nano-crystal molecules in solutions and measured the orientational direction of polymer nanowires. A typical precision on the order of 10−3 is achieved in the measurement of S and θ. Compared with the current existing techniques, the present scheme not only offers higher measurement precision but also maintains extreme cost-efficiency, thereby holding significance for the research of orientational materials and devices.