optical lever

optical lever

[′äp·tə·kəl ′lev·ər]
(optics)
A device for measuring small angular displacements of a rotating body in which a narrow fixed beam of light is directed onto a small mirror attached to the body and the reflected beam is directed onto a screen, producing a spot of light whose position is measured.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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References in periodicals archive ?
Figure 1 shows a laser based measurement setup (also called optical lever method) wherein a laser beam, reflected from the surface of the cantilever, is detected by split photo-detectors that can measure the deflections with high accuracy (0.1 nm) as reported by Fritz et al.
Later, the thiol self-assembled mono-layers (SAMs) on the other cantilever (sensor) were observed with optical lever and interferometry methods.
Advances in nanotechnology: influence on biomolecular detection sensors
One way would be to use an "optical lever." Attach a flat mirror to one part, point a telescope at it, and view the reflected image of a distant scale.
The power of optical leverage

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