Determining Stress in Translucent Materials Using Quantum Optics and Photoelasticity

Abstract (EN)

Stress is a fundamental parameter in engineering, directly related to the strength and performance of materials. In practice, stress is often distributed unevenly within a material, although objects with identical geometries may exhibit similar stress behavior. The conventional technique for visualizing and estimating stress is photoelasticity, which relies on observing stress-induced fringes pattern. Despite its usefulness, photoelasticity is limited to regions where fringes appear and suffers from relatively low resolution. To address these limitations, this work proposes an experimental setup employing quantum optics principles to enhance stress measurement in translucent materials. The approach utilizes polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) plates, which exhibit birefringence under applied stress. The resulting phase difference between two optical paths is used as the basis for stress determination. Entangled photon pairs and coincidence counting are incorporated to improve measurement resolution and suppress noise, thereby extending the capability beyond that of traditional photoelasticity. Experimental results demonstrate that the developed setup can detect the applied force by analyzing real-time coincidence counts. However, it does not yet provide precise quantitative stress values or detailed stress distributions. These limitations arise primarily from instrumental inaccuracies and resolution constraints, which lead to deviations from theoretical predictions. Further refinement is required for broader application.