ABSTRACT
Curvature measurement plays an important role in structural health monitoring, robot-pose measuring, etc. High-resolution curvature measurement is highly demanded. In this paper, an optical curvature sensor with high resolution based on in-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and microwave photonic filter (MPF) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The in-fiber MZI is constructed with a ring-core fiber (RCF) which is fusion spliced between two coreless fibers (CLFs). The structure of CLF-RCF-CLF is then sandwiched between two segments of single-mode fiber (SMF), making the whole interferometer structure of SMF-CLF-RCF-CLF-SMF. The operating principle is that different curvatures will cause the variations of the interference spectrum of MZI due to elastic-optic effect, and then the variations are converted into the frequency-shift of the MPF. The factors affecting the visibility of the interference spectrum are researched. A preliminary exploration of the multiplexing demodulation for the in-fiber-MZIs is also investigated and discussed, which is for the first time to the best of our knowledge, holding great potential to pave the way for constructing the sensing network composed of interferometric sensors. The curvature measurement sensitivity is -147.634 MHz/m-1, and the resolution is 6.774 × 10-6 m-1 which is the highest value up to now.
ABSTRACT
This paper describes the effective rectification of the estimated diameter of an optical microfiber (OM) during the tapering process. A high-coherence laser is used to monitor the OM-tapering process. The evolution of the intermodal interference between the fundamental mode and the coupled modes can be clearly observed. We analyze the point in time at which the excited mode vanishes and use that to justify the correlative diameter of the fabricated OM for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. By comparing the measured cutoff time of the coupled LP(02) mode and the theoretically predicted value, we can judge whether the theoretical estimation of the OM diameter has been correctly obtained, and we can introduce a modification method with feedback by changing the initial parameters or the manufacturing conditions to ensure OM diameter accuracy. This identification and rectification method is helpful for precise fabrication of OMs with different waist lengths and waist diameters, and it can also be used to check the repeatability of OMs.
ABSTRACT
A compact optical microfiber phase modulator with MHz bandwidth is presented. A micrometer-diameter microfiber is wound on a millimeter-diameter piezoelectric ceramic rod with two electrodes. When a voltage is applied to the piezoelectric ceramic, the rod is strained, leading to a phase change along the microfiber; because of the small size, the optical microfiber phase modulator can have as high as a few MHz bandwidth response.
ABSTRACT
We demonstrate a technique for tapering periodically an all-solid soft glass fiber, consisting of two types of lead silicate glasses, by the use of a focused CO(2) laser beam and investigate the bend sensing applications of the periodically tapered soft glass fiber. Such a soft glass fiber with periodic microtapers could be used to develop promising bend sensors with a sensitivity of -27.75 µW/m(-1) by means of measuring the bend-induced change of light intensity. The proposed bend sensor exhibits a very low measurement error of down to ±1%.
ABSTRACT
In this paper we demonstrate a compact current sensor using the optic fiber micro wire, based on the idea of interferometrically measuring the thermally induced optical phase shifts as a result of heat produced due to the flow of electric current over short transit lengths. A responsivity of 1.28 x 10(-4) rad/I(2) at 50 Hz of current signal has been shown, with capability of measuring alternating current signals up to 500 Hz.