Abstract
Acceleration is a significant parameter for monitoring the status of a given objects. This paper presents a novel linear acceleration sensor that functions via a unique physical mechanism, the resonant optical tunneling effect (ROTE). The accelerometer consists of a fixed frame, two elastic cantilevers, and a major cylindrical mass comprised of a resonant cavity that is separated by two air tunneling gaps in the middle. The performance of the proposed sensor was analyzed with a simplified mathematical model, and simulated using finite element modeling. The simulation results showed that the optical Q factor and the sensitivity of the accelerometer reach up to 8.857 × 107 and 9 pm/g, respectively. The linear measurement range of the device is ±130 g. The work bandwidth obtained is located in 10–1500 Hz. The results of this study provide useful guidelines to improve measurement range and resolution of integrated optical acceleration sensors.
Highlights
Acceleration is a crucial parameter for monitoring the status of moving objects
The resonant optical tunneling effect (ROTE) optical acceleration sensor uses a wide spectrum light source to monitor the shift of the transmission peak
Structure takes advantage of the evanescent isThe three orders lower than that of it is reasonable to expect that reason behind this phenomenon is that the ROTE structure takes advantage of the evanescent wavethe originated from the total reflection effect to form a reflection interface with ultrahigh reflectivity, ROTE
Summary
Acceleration is a crucial parameter for monitoring the status of moving objects. Accelerometers have been a popular research object in recent years as they are widely used in many fields, such as aerospace, vibration sensing, and medical science [1,2]. The working principle of an optical accelerometer is typically based on FP cavity [5], waveguide coupling [6,7] and fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) [8,9]. As the successful direct displacement measurement is a key factor in acceleration evaluation, an extreme displacement resolution results in a high acceleration sensitivity; this is realized in the proposed accelerometer based on a unique physical structure of ROTE. When the sensor is under in-plane vibration (i.e., acceleration changes), the small displacement caused by the change in acceleration can be accurately measured by monitoring the shift of the resonant peak with ultrahigh optical quality factor Q (the value of which can up to 107 ~109 ).
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