Acoustic levitation with polarising optical microscopy (AL-POM): water uptake in a nanostructured atmospheric aerosol proxy

Abstract

We present acoustic levitation combined with polarising optical microscopy (AL-POM). Fatty acid aerosols were probed and a model fit revealed a ca. 5–6 orders of magnitude difference in water diffusion coefficient upon a phase transition between optically birefringent and non-birefringent phases.