Fast and economic signal processing technique of laser diode self-mixing interferometry for nanoparticle size measurement

The size of nanoparticles is measured by laser diode self-mixing interferometry, which employs a sensitive, compact, and simple optical setup. However, the signal processing of the interferometry is slow or expensive. In this article, a fast and economic signal processing technique is introduced, in which the self-mixing AC signal is transformed into DC signals with an analog circuit consisting of 16 channels. These DC signals are obtained as a spectrum from which the size of nanoparticles can be retrieved. The technique is examined by measuring the standard nanoparticles. Further experiments are performed to compare the skimmed milk and whole milk, and also the fresh skimmed milk and rotten skimmed milk.