A heterodyne laser interferometer that was designed to measure subnanometre vibrations of various biological structures in the inner ear (Cooper, 1999) will be demonstrated. Three-dimensional reconstructions of the object’s motion are made possible by rotating the object about two orthogonal axes and making multiple measurements. The reconstruction algorithm has been modified from that published by Decraemer et al. (1994), and will be demonstrated using a personal computer.

This work was supported by the Royal Society, Defeating Deafness (the Hearing Research Trust) and The Wellcome Trust.

Cooper, N.P. (1999). J. Neurosci. Meth. 88, 93-102.

Decraemer, W.F., Khanna, S.M. & Funnell, W.R.J. (1994). Hearing Res. 77, 19-37.