Measuring refractive index of glass by using speckle

A method to measure the refractive index of an optically flat, regularly shaped slab of glass using speckle correlation-based techniques is reported. The intensity of the diffraction field of the diffuser is captured by a CCD both with and without the glass present. As the position of the peak correlation coefficient is quantitatively related to the change in optical path length arising due to the presence of the glass, the refractive index of the glass can be evaluated by cross-correlating the two captured images. The theoretical correlation function that describes the effects of such an optical path length change is discussed, and the resulting speckle decorrelation function derived. Two glass samples are measured to demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed technique.