Flow-induced birefringence (FIB) setup
The FIB setup is based on Onuma and Otani 2014.
[Link to publication].
Depending on the system under investigation, birefringence provides information about the degree of anisotropy present in the material. In polymer solutions, birefringence is closely related to the extent of polymer chain stretching and alignment. For suspensions of rod-like colloids, it primarily reflects the orientational dynamics and ordering of the particles.
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This FIB setup enables quantitative measurements of phase retardation and azimuthal angle. The current setup can operate with a wavelength of 633 ± 3 or 405 ± 3 nm, enabling a maximum measurable retardation of 633/4 and 405/4 nm, respectively. ​
An example of the Birefringence map within an Optimized Cross Slot Extensional Rheometer (OSCER) is given below. The colour code encodes the level of polymer stretching within the microfluidic device. ​​
