Mesa Diaphragm-Based Fabry-Perot Optical MEMS Pressure Sensor

An optical micro electron mechanical system （MEMS） pressure sensor with a mesa membrane is presented. The operating principle of the MEMS pressure sensor is expatiated by the Fabry-Perot （F-P） interference and the relation between deflection and pressure is analyzed. Both the mechanical model of the mesa structure diaphragm and the signal averaging effect is validated by simulation, which declares that the mesa structure diaphragm is superior to the planar one on the parallelism and can reduce the signal averaging effect. Experimental results demonstrate that the mesa structure sensor has a reasonable linearity and sensitivity.

Miniaturized Fiber-Optic Fabry-Perot Interferometer for Highly Sensitive Refractive Index Measurement

This paper presents a novel miniaturized fiber-optic Fabry-Peort interferometer （FPI） for highly sensitive refractive index measurement. This device was tested for the refractive indices of various liquids including acetone and ethanol at room temperature. The sensitivity for measurement of refractive index change of ethanol is 1138 nm/RIU at the wavelength of 1550 nm. In addition, the sensor fabrication is simple including only cleaving, splicing, and etching. The signal is stable with high visibility. Therefore, it provides a valuable tool in biological and chemical applications.

Research on stress characteristics of Fabry-Perot sensor with center microbubble structure

The optical fiber based on silicon materials has a smaller thermal expansion coefficient, therefore it can be used for the preparation of sensor devices which are insensitive to temperature but sensitive to refractive index, strain, stress, etc. For example, we can use optical fiber Fabry-Perot （F-P） sensor to achieve high sensitivity stress sensing. In this paper, we design an optical fiber F-P sensor with low cost and high sensitivity based on chemical etching method and analyze the stress sensing properties. Hydrofluoric acid is used to prepare the end face concave hole of the optical fiber first, and then the hollow struc-ture of the fiber F-P sensor is obtained by melting and discharge. This preparation method contributes greatly to enhancing the stress sensing properties and temperature insensitivity of the optical fiber device. The experimental results show that interference spectrum peak change is proportional to the stress change of optical fiber F-P sensor, stress sensitivity can reach 5. 2, and the cost is relatively low. Based on this,it has a certain application value in the stress sensing field.

Utilization of Extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometers with Spectral Interferometric Interrogation for Microdisplacement Measurement

The paper presents a number of signal processing approaches for the spectral interferometric interrogation of extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometers(EFPIs). The analysis of attainable microdisplacement resolution is performed and the analytical equations describing the dependence of resolution on parameters of the interrogation setup are derived. The efficiency of the proposed signal processing approaches and the validity of analytical derivations are supported by experiments. The proposed approaches allow the interrogation of up to four multiplexed sensors with attained resolution between 30 pm and 80 pm, up to three times improvement of microdisplacement resolution of a single sensor by means of using the reference interferometer and noisecompensating approach, and ability to register signals with frequencies up to 1 kHz in the case of 1 Hz spectrum acquisition rate. The proposed approaches can be used for various applications, including biomedical, industrial inspection, and others, amongst the microdisplacement measurement.

High-finesse displacement sensor and a theoretical accelerometer model based on a fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer

A displacement sensor based on the fiber Fabry-Perot (F-P) cavity was proposed in this paper. Theoretical and experimental analyses were presented. Displacement resolution was demonstrated by spectrum-domain experiments to obtain the dynamic range of the F-P sensor, and a piezoelectric crystal unit (PZT) was used as the driver. The output signal was modulated by a piezoelectric ceramic ring and demodulated by a phase-locked oscillator. The experimental results show that the displacement resolution of the F-P sensor is less than 5 nm and the dynamic range is more than 100 μm. As acceleration is the second-order differential of displacement, an accelerometer model was proposed using the finite element method (FEM) nd ANSYS software.

Study on Fiber-Optic Low-Coherence Interferometric and Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

This article reviews author＇s research work on fiber-optic sensors over the last twenty years. It includes two aspects： low-coherence interferometric sensors （LCI） and fiber Bragg grating （FBG） sensors. For LCI sensors, author＇s work mainly focuses on the interrogation and multiplexing methods for Fizeau and Fabry-Perot interferometric sensors at the University of Kent at Canterbury （UKC）, UK, and study on novel Fabry-Perot interferometric sensors and their multiplexing methods at Chongqing University （CQU） and University of Electronic Science ＆ Technology of China （UESTC）, China, respectively. For FBG sensors, a number of multiplexing schemes are proposed and demonstrated at UKC, and then novel methods for realization of multi-parameter measurement and long-distance measurement based on the FBG sensor and its combination with other optical fiber sensors are also reported at CQU ＆ UESTC. Thus, author＇s study on these two topics can be diviaed into two periods, at UKC and at CQU ＆ UESTC, China. This review is presented in such a time sequence.

Recent Developments in Fiber Optic Spectral White-Light Interferometry

Recent developments in spectral white-light interferometry(WLI)are reviewed.Firstly,the techniques for obtaining optical spectrum are introduced.Secondly,some novel measurement techniques are reviewed,including the improved peak-to-peak WLI,improved wavelength-tracking WLI,Fourier transform WLI,and 3×3 coupler based WLI.Furthermore,a hybrid measurement for the intensity-type sensors,interferometric sensors,and fiber Bragg grating sensors is achieved.It is shown that these developments have assisted in the progress of WLI.

Fiber Fabry-Perot Interferometer for Curvature Sensing

A curvature sensor based on an Fabry-Perot （FP） interferometer was proposed. A capillary silica tube was fusion spliced between two single mode fibers, producing an FP cavity. Two FP sensors with different cavity lengths were developed and subjected to curvature and temperature. The FP sensor with longer cavity showed three distinct operating regions for the curvature measurement. Namely, a linear response was shown for an intermediate curvature radius range, presenting a maximum sensitivity of 68.52 pm/m-1. When subjected to temperature, the sensing head produced a similar response for different curvature radii, with a sensitivity varying from 0.84 pm/℃ to 0.89 pm/℃, which resulted in a small cross-sensitivity to temperature when the FP sensor was subjected to curvature. The FP cavity with shorter length presented low sensitivity to curvature.

IONIC SELF-ASSEMBLY AND HUMIDITY SENSITIVITY OF POLYELECTROLYTE MULTILAYERS

Multilayer thin films of alternately adsorbed layers of polyelectrolytes PDDA and PS-119 were formed on both planar silica substrates and optical fibers through the ionic self-assembly technique. Intrinsic Fabry-Perot cavities were fabricated by stepwise assembling the polyelectrolytes onto the ends of optical fibers for the purposes of fiber optical device and sensor development. Ionically assembled polyelectrolyte multilayer thin films, in which. there are hydrophilic side groups with strong affinity towards water molecules, are a category of humidity-sensitive functional materials. The polyelectrolyte multilayer thin film Fabry-Perot cavity-type fiber optical humidity sensor can work over a wide range from about 0% RH to about 100% RH with a response time less than 1 s.

A Probe-Shaped Sensor With FBG and Fiber-Tip Bubble for Pressure and Temperature Sensing

A probe-shaped sensor for simultaneous temperature and pressure measurement was reported in this article.The effective length of the sensor was〜2 mm,consisting of a fiber Bragg grating(FBG)and a Fabry-Perot interferometer(FPI)with a nano silica diaphragm.The response sensitivities of the sensor for pressure and temperature were measured as-0.98 nm/MPa and 11.10pm/℃,respectively.This sensor had an extremely low cross-sensitivity between pressure and temperature,which provided a significant potential in dual-parameter sensing.

HCPCF-Based In-Line Fiber Fabry-Perot Refractometer and High Sensitivity Signal Processing Method

An in-line fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer （FPI） based on the hollow-core photonic crystal fiber （HCPCF） for refractive index （RI） measurement is proposed in this paper. The FPI is formed by splicing both ends of a short section of the HCPCF to single mode fibers （SMFs） and cleaving the SMF pigtail to a proper length. The RI response of the sensor is analyzed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. The results show that the FPI sensor has linear response to external RI and good repeatability. The sensitivity calculated from the maximum fringe contrast is -136 dB/RIU. A new spectrum differential integration （SDI） method for signal processing is also presented in this study. In this method, the RI is obtained from the integrated intensity of the absolute difference between the interference spectrum and its smoothed spectrum. The results show that the sensitivity obtained from the integrated intensity is about -1.34× 10^5 dB/RIU. Compared with the maximum fringe contrast method, the new SDI method can provide the higher sensitivity, better linearity, improved reliability, and accuracy, and it＇s also convenient for automatic and fast signal processing in real-time monitoring of RI.

Nanostrain Measurement Using Chirped Bragg Grating Fabry-Perot Interferometer

A simple nanostrain direct current （DC） measurement system based on a chirped Bragg grating Fabry-Perot （FP） structure is presented. The FP cavity, formed between the chirped fiber Bragg grating （CFBG） and the fiber end face, presents an aperiodic behavior due to the CFBG. A laser located in the fringe pattern slope is used to interrogate the sensing head. The optical power parameter is analyzed when strain is applied, for long and short period fringe pattern wavelengths, and sensitivities of-2.87 μW/με and-5.48μW/με are respectively obtained. This configuration presents a resolution of 70 ε.