Development of a fast position-sensitive laser beam detector

Abstract

We report the development of a fast position-sensitive laser beam detector. The detector uses a fiber-optic bundle that spatially splits the incident beam, followed by a fast balanced photodetector. The detector is applied to the study of Brownian motion of particles on fast time scales with 1 Å spatial resolution. Future applications include the study of molecule motors, protein folding, as well as cellular processes. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.