GMR Appliques for Large Area Full Field Strain Measurement

Prime Research LC proposes to develop a real-time, full-field, and full-vector strain measurement system based on polarimetric imaging of diffractive optical "stick-on" appliqués. The proposed technology will be inexpensive and capable of measuring real-time vector strain fields over large areas with sub-millimeter spatial resolution. The system will be based on a simple and highly sensitive optical phenomenon called guided-mode resonance (GMR) that produces a strong optical response to stress induced physical deformations. The vector nature of strain will be resolved over large areas by imaging the polarization and chromatic response of the appliqué. Data processing will be minimized because transduction of vector strain is elegantly handled by the physics of the GMR appliqué. "Brightness" in the grayscale images will directly correspond to strain along the optical axes of the appliqué. These will be recombined to produce images and/or video of the vector strain field in real-time.