Measuring mixing dynamics of transparent fluids with electronic speckle pattern interferometry

Electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) combined with phase-shifting techniques is used for studying the mixing dynamics of transparent fluids. The potentials of the technique for studying fluid mixing are illustrated for simple examples of water flow and moving water droplets in water. With ESPI we could actually follow water droplets moving in water and water flowing in water on a television monitor at the video rate. A He-Ne laser (lambda(0) = 632.8 nm) was used as the light source, and phase stepping was applied, giving an interferometric sensitivity better than lambda(0)/10. The observed phase changes are due to changes in the refractive index caused by small temperature differences between the droplets and the surrounding water. Temperature differences of less than 0.1 K are detectable for droplets of a diameter of 4 mm.