Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV)

Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) is a technique which allows the measurement of velocity at a point in a flow field with a high temporal resolution. Whenever a micron-sized liquid or solid particle entrained in a fluid passes through the intersection of two laser beams, the scattered light received from the particles fluctuates in intensity.

Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) makes use of the fact that the frequency of this fluctuation is equivalent to the Doppler shift between the incident and scattered light, and is thus proportional to the component of particle velocity which lies in the plane of two laser beams.