Vibration sensitivity of optical components: A survey

Abstract

Building optical fiber-based systems presents different challenges than free-space architectures due to the inherent vibration sensitivity of the fiber and the associated components. A survey of the vibration sensitivity of an assortment of commonly used fiber-based optical components is presented to identify problematic parts of a fiber-based design. The measurement of vibration sensitivity is challenging due to the difficulty of separating the sensitivity of the components from the measurement apparatus itself. The noise introduced by the interconnecting fibers bridging between the stationary measurement system and the vibrating device under test can dominate and mask the noise of the device being measured. We propose and demonstrate a novel technique to measure the vibration sensitivity of fiber-based optical components. It uses a common-arm counter-propagating frequency-shifted interferometer that cancels the vibration-induced phase noise of the interconnecting fibers. The proposed technique improves the vibration-induced phase noise floor by more than 30 dB compared to a conventional frequency-shifted Mach-Zehnder interferometer and allows measurement of low vibration sensitive devices.