INTERNAL WAVES - A NOVEL MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUE

We present here a novel opto-electronic technique to directly measure the internal wave oscillations, created by systematically disturbing a density stratified water column with a rotating propeller in a labora tory wave tank. The technique, based on the principle of laser beam de flection (LED), apart from being noninvasive and highly sensitive, doe s not have the customary constraints on the sampling frequency and the duration of data sampling, as is the case with conventional experimen tal procedures. The noninvasive nature of this technique has good pote ntial in future studies of diffusion and mixing processes in different disciplines.