Multifunctional optical system-on-a-chip for heterogeneous fiber optic sensor networks

Abstract

In this article, we review our recent progress on the development of a multifunctional optical system-on-a-chip platform, which can be used for achieving heterogeneous wireless fiber optical sensor networks. A multifunctional optical sensor platform based on the micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology is developed. The key component of the multifunctional optical sensor platform is a MEMS based tunable Fabry-Perot (FP) filter, which can be used as a phase modulator or a wavelength tuning device in a multifunctional optical sensing system. Mechanics model of the FP filter and optics model of the multifunctional optical sensing system are developed to facilitate the design of the filter. The MEMS FP filter is implemented in a multifunctional optical sensing system including both Fabry-Perot interferometer based sensors and Fiber Bragg grating sensors. The experimental results indicate that this large dynamic range tunable filter can enable high performance heterogeneous optical sensing for many applications.