Exploring extreme thermodynamics in nanoliter volumes through stimulated Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering

Abstract

Examining the physical properties of materials - particularly of toxic liquids - under a wide range of thermodynamic states is a challenging problem due to the extreme conditions the material has to be exposed to. Such temperature and pressure regimes, which result in a change of refractive index and sound velocity can be accessed by optoacoustic interactions such as Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering. Here we experimentally demonstrate Brillouin-Mandelstam measurements of nanoliter volumes of liquids in extreme thermodynamic regimes. We use a fully-sealed liquid-core optical fiber containing carbon disulfide; within this waveguide, which exhibits tight optoacoustic confinement and a high Brillouin gain of (32.2 $\pm$ 0.8) 1/(Wm), we are able to conduct spatially resolved measurements of the Brillouin frequency shift. Knowledge of the local Brillouin response enables us to control the temperature and pressure independently over a wide range. We observe and measure the material properties of the liquid core at very large positive pressures (above 1000 bar), substantial negative pressures (below -300 bar) and we explore the isobaric and isochoric regimes. The extensive thermodynamic control allows the tunability of the Brillouin frequency shift of more than 40% using only minute volumes of liquid. This work opens the way for future studies of liquids under a variety of conventionally hard-to-reach conditions.