Fabry-Perot Interferometric Sensor Research Articles

All-sapphire fiber-optic sensor for the simultaneous measurement of ultra-high temperature and high pressure

An all-sapphire fiber-optic extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric (EFPI) sensor for the simultaneous measurement of ultra-high temperature and high pressure is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor is fabricated based on all-sapphire, including a sapphire fiber, a sapphire capillary and a sapphire wafer. A femtosecond (fs) laser is employed to drill a through hole at the side wall of the sapphire capillary to allow gas flow. The sapphire fiber is inserted from one side of the sapphire capillary. The sapphire wafer is fixed at the other side of the sapphire capillary. The first Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity, composed of the end face of the sapphire fiber and the front surface of the sapphire wafer, is used for measuring pressure, while the second FP cavity, composed of the two surfaces of the sapphire wafer, is used for measuring temperature. Experimental results show that the sensor can simultaneously measure ultra-high temperature and gas pressure within the temperature range of 20 - 1400 °C and the pressure range of 0 - 5 MPa. The temperature sensitivity is 0.0033 µm/°C, and the pressure sensitivity decreases as the temperature increases, reaching 1.8016 µm/MPa and 0.3253 µm/MPa at temperatures of 20 °C and 1400 °C, respectively.

Four-wavelength laser interferometry for the demodulation of dual-cavity fiber-optic extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric sensors

A four-wavelength passive demodulation algorithm is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for the interrogation of the one cavity in a dual-cavity extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric (EFPI) sensor. The lengths of two cavities are adjusted to generate four quadrature signals for each individual cavity. Both simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the performance of this technique. The experimental results demonstrate that dynamic signals at frequencies of 100 Hz, 200 Hz, and 300 Hz with varying amplitude are successfully extracted from a dual-cavity EFPI sensor with initial lengths of 93.4803 µm and 94.0091 µm. The technique shows the potential application to measure dynamic signals in dual-cavity fiber-optic EFPI sensors.

Investigation of CO2 measurement of ZIF-8-based F–P interferometric optical fiber sensor

In this paper, a set of ZIF-8 (Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-8)-based Fabry-Perot (F–P) interferometric optical fiber sensor was designed to measure the carbon dioxide gas with different concentrations. The optical path difference of our sensing element was mainly caused by the F–P cavity filled with ZIF-8 instead of gas cavity. We analyzed the operating principle and verified the feasibility of the sensor. We gave the exact relation between the concentration of carbon dioxide and each parameter of the F–P cavity. The experimental results show that the spectrum will be red-shifted with the increase of the adsorption of carbon dioxide by ZIF-8 at a certain concentration of carbon dioxide. In addition, after applying Fourier transform to the spectrum, the frequency spectrum displayed two main peaks which changed to the lager value with the increase of concentration of carbon dioxide. The sensor has linear wavelength and phase sensitivities with the concentration of carbon dioxide under 5 × 104 ppm. Besides, the response time becomes shorter as the concentration of carbon dioxide decreases. To sum up, we presented a fiber optic gas sensor that is both simple to manufacture and has high selectivity, making it an effective method for measuring carbon dioxide.

Crosstalk suppression of extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric sensor array based on five-step phase shift demodulation scheme using multiwavelength averaging.

A five-step phase shift demodulation scheme based on a multiwavelength averaging method is proposed to suppress crosstalk within an extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric (EFPI) sensor array. The paper focuses on a two-element sensing system based on the EFPI sensors to investigate the crosstalk in the EFPI sensor array. A detailed theoretical analysis of crosstalk suppression using the proposed demodulation method is presented. Numerical simulations and experiments are put forward to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed demodulation scheme in suppressing crosstalk under varying parameters. The results of the multiwavelength demodulation scheme indicate superior crosstalk suppression capability in contrast to the conventional five-step phase shift demodulation scheme based on a single-wavelength demodulation method. Furthermore, the paper reveals the enhanced crosstalk suppression capability of the proposed demodulation scheme when the cavity length difference between elements is not equal to zero. It alleviates the requirement for consistent cavity length among different elements in the sensing array. The proposed demodulation scheme exhibits excellent crosstalk suppression capabilities in optical multiplexing arrays by decreasing the dependency on extinction ratio and could be potentially used in the large-scale optical hydrophone array system.

Fast-Response Fiber-Optic FPI Temperature Sensing System Based on Modulated Grating Y-Branch Tunable Laser

In this paper, a cost-effective and miniaturized instrument is proposed, which is based on a tunable modulated grating Y-branch (MG-Y) laser for rapid temperature measurement using a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) sensor. The FPI sensor with a 1 463-µm cavity length is a short segment of a capillary tube sandwiched by two sections of single-mode fibers (SMFs). This system has a broad tunable range (1 527 nm–1 567 nm) with a wavelength interval of 8 pm and a tuning rate of 100 Hz. Temperature sensing experiments are carried out to investigate the performance of the system by demodulating the absolute cavity length of the FPI sensor using a cross-correlation algorithm. Experimental results show that the sensor can reach the response time as short as 94 ms with the sensitivity of 802 pm/°C. Benefiting from the homemade and integrated essential electrical circuits, the entire system has the small size, low cost, and practical application potential to be used in the harsh environment for rapid temperature measurement.

Three-wavelength phase demodulation technique for extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric sensors

A three-wavelength quadrature phase compensation method for recovering dynamic signals in extrinsic Fabry–Perot interferometers (EFPIs) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The influence of the direct current component is eliminated by using three symmetrical interferometric signals, and two orthogonal signals are obtained by the phase compensation algorithm to extract the phase change. A sinewave with a frequency of 1000 Hz was applied on an EFPI sensor. The cavity length of the EFPI sensor is 643.0299 μm. The demodulated signal is a sinewave with a frequency of 1000 Hz. The demodulated frequency shows good agreement with the frequency of the applied signal. This technique is suitable for measuring EFPI sensor cavity length changes under dynamic signals.

Multi-Point Optical Fiber Fabry-Perot Curvature Sensor Based on Microwave Photonics

This article reports a multi-point curvature sensor system based on multiplexed optical fiber Fabry-Perot interferometric (FPI) sensor devices and a microwave photonics interrogation technique. The FPI sensor is fabricated with the assistance of a capillary tube, where a short section of the capillary is sandwiched between two single-mode fibers, forming the air-gap Fabry-Perot cavity. Bending of the FPI device leads to changes in the fringe contrast of its reflection spectrum. Based on the microwave photonics filtering technique, variations of the fringe contrast are encoded into the changes in the peak magnitude of the passband in the frequency response of the FPI device. By multiplexing such FPI devices with different cavity lengths, multi-point measurements of curvature can be realized by tracking changes in corresponding passbands in the frequency response of the system. The FPI curvature sensor is easy-to-manufacture and cost-effective, and the microwave photonics-based system provides an alternative and robust solution to interrogating the multiplexed FPI sensors for multi-point curvature sensing that could be desired in structural health monitoring, human-machine interface sensing, and other related fields.

Polymer Microtip-Based Fabry-Perot Interferometer for Water Content Determination in the Gas and Liquid Phase.

In this work, we present a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) based on a polymer microtip for water content determination in both the gas and liquid phase. The polymer tip of pentaerythritol triacrylate (PETA) is fabricated at the end of an optical fiber by self-guiding photopolymerization, forming at the same time a low-fineness Fabry-Perot interferometer and a sensing layer for water thanks to hydroxyl groups present in PETA. The PETA tip shows a clear interferometric signal, which is highly sensitive to the change of the water content in the environment. The FPI signal shifts with a constant sensitivity of 90 pm/%RH, which corresponds to a relative sensitivity of 104 ppm/% RH, in the range of relative humidity from 30 to 80%. In liquid, the FPI sensor shows a nonlinear sensitivity, up to 158 pm/wt % as the water content is below 40 wt % in water/glycerol mixtures. The cross effect of the temperature on the PETA tip is demonstrated to be negligible as the FPI signal is insensitive to temperature changes from 23 to 70 °C. More importantly, the interaction between the tip and the environment affecting the FPI signal is demonstrated experimentally. The proposed FPI sensor is therefore promising for the direct, sensitive, and reliable determination of the water content of products.

Ultracompact Optical Fiber Sensor for Inner Diameter Measurement

ABSTRACT An ultracompact optical fiber Fabry–Perot interferometric sensor is proposed and demonstrated for inner diameter measurement of a capillary tube. The device is a section of single-mode fiber with an angle-polished end face of 45°. When the device is placed inside the capillary tube and in close contact with its inner wall surface, the reflected light from the angle-polished fiber end face is directed sequentially to the fiber core–cladding, cladding–air, and air–capillary interfaces, respectively, and reflected back, and finally returned to the fiber core after being reflected by the angle-polished fiber end face again. As a result, a cascaded Fabry–Perot interferometer system is constructed, which is well suitable for the inner diameter measurement of the capillary tube. Moreover, the wall thickness of the transparent capillary tube can also be conveniently measured by using the same device in slightly different configuration. The relative error of the measurement is small compared with the data provided by the manufacturer. Such a device is ultracompact, robust, flexible, and convenient in operation and is especially attractive for implementing the measurement in a tight or hard-to-reach spatial environment.

High-sensitivity fiber optic Fabry-Perot ultrasonic sensor based on a grooved silicon diaphragm for partial discharge detection.

An extrinsic fiber optic Fabry-Perot interferometric (EFPI) ultrasonic sensor based on a grooved silicon diaphragm for partial discharge (PD) detection has been proposed. The size of the groove is determined by finite element simulation, which allows the resonant frequency of the sensor to meet the requirements of PD ultrasonic detection and improves the sensitivity of the sensor by 5.07 times compared with that based on a traditional circular diaphragm. The microelectro-mechanical system process is used to fabricate the diaphragm on a silicon-on-insulator wafer, and the prepared diaphragm has a grooved section with a diameter of 829.34µm and a thickness of only 2.09µm. At its resonant frequency of 61.5kHz, the acoustic pressure sensitivity of the sensor is 172.42mV/Pa. The ultrasonic signal detection capability of the sensor is verified in the PD experiment. Furthermore, the characteristics of the corona discharge are successfully manifested based on the ultrasonic waves detected by the EFPI sensor. It is demonstrated that the proposed sensor is suitable for PD detection due to its high sensitivity, simple production process, and good resistance to environmental interference.

Polymer-coated fiber-optic Fabry-Perot interferometer-based temperature sensor with high sensitivity

In this paper, a highly sensitive temperature sensor based on polymer-coated Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) is proposed and demonstrated. The FPI temperature sensor consists of the end face of single-mode fiber (SMF) and the Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cap on the end face. By varying the number of coatings, the thickness of the PDMS cap can be flexibly controlled to obtain FPI sensors with different cavity lengths. The temperature sensitivity is studied experimentally from −30 °C to 85 °C, and it is found that the sensor shows different sensitivity in different temperature intervals, up to 0.698 nm/°C. Compared to similarly constructed sensors, the sensor in this paper has a large temperature range while maintaining a high sensitivity. In addition, the performance of the sensor is tested by experiments and the results show that the sensor possesses the advantages of good stability, fast response time and good repeatability.

Fabry-Perot Interferometric Fiber-Optic Sensor for Rapid and Accurate Thrombus Detection.

We present a fiber-optic sensor based on the principles of a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI), which promptly, sensitively, and precisely detects blood clot formation. This sensor has two types of sensor tips; the first was crafted by splicing a tapered fiber into a single-mode fiber (SMF), where fine-tuning was achieved by adjusting the tapered diameter and length. The second type is an ultra-compact blood FPI situated on the core of a single-mode fiber. The sensor performance was evaluated via clot-formation-indicating spectrum shifts induced by the varied quantities of a thrombin reagent introduced into the blood. The most remarkable spectral sensitivity of the micro-tip fiber type was approximately 7 nm/μL, with a power sensitivity of 4.1 dB/μL, obtained with a taper fiber diameter and length of 55 and 300 μm, respectively. For the SMF type, spectral sensitivity was observed to be 8.7 nm/μL, with an optical power sensitivity of 0.4 dB/μL. This pioneering fiber-optic thrombosis sensor has the potential for in situ applications, healthcare, medical monitoring, harsh environments, and chemical and biological sensing. The study underscores the scope of optical technology in thrombus detection, establishing a platform for future medical research and application.

Ultra-high sensitivity microwave-photonic sapphire fiber Fabry-Perot interferometry based on the Vernier effect.

The wavelength of microwave is longer than that of lightwave, causing the interferometric optical path difference induced by the measurand changes to be relatively smaller than that of microwave, which results in the lower sensitivity of sapphire fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) sensor in microwave band. To improve sensitivity, a parallel FPI sensing system is constructed, in which a section of sapphire fiber connected to a single-mode transmission fiber is used as a sensing FPI, and a single-mode fiber (SMF) with a slightly different optical path from a sensing FPI is utilized as a reference FPI. By connecting two FPIs in parallel, Vernier effect is formed to improve sensitivity. The influence of relationship between the optical path difference of the reference FPI and the sensing FPI on the sensitivity amplification factor is analyzed based on the microwave interference spectrum of the parallel FPI. A section of sapphire fiber with the length of 8 cm is used as temperature sensor to construct high-temperature sensing system. The results demonstrate that the temperature sensitivity reaches about 2338.68kHz/°C, which is approximately 130 times higher than that of the sensing FPI alone. Furthermore, when the difference of optical path between the sensing FPI and the reference FPI is kept constant while the sensing FPI is unchanged, the amplification factor of the temperature sensitivity is approximately 2.64 times higher with longer length of the reference FPI compared to the situation with shorter length of the reference FPI.

High-Stability Polarization-Based Interrogation Method With Cross-Correlation for Optical Fiber Interferometric Acoustic Sensors

In this work, we propose and demonstrate a high-stability polarization-based interrogation method using cross-correlation for optical fiber interferometric acoustic sensing. Specifically, an extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric (EFPI) sensor based on polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) diaphragm is firstly used for signal detection, and then a cross-correlation interrogation system is formed with a birefringent crystal based on polarization low-coherence interference technology. Finally, the direct current (DC) component of the interference signal can be acquired in real-time with the help of the birefringent crystals block of known length. The system does not require an orthogonal relationship between the interference signals. Moreover, it can still work when the initial cavity length of the sensor drifts due to the influence of the environment. Theoretical simulations and a series of experiments have been carried out to verify the feasibility of the proposed scheme. And experimental results show that the sensor's initial cavity length shifts from 90.082 μm to 88.451μm or 91.692 μm under 1kHz acoustic signal, the maximum relative demodulation error is 0.4539 nm, and the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)can reach 80 dB. Compared with the reported schemes, the proposed interrogation scheme simplifies the system configuration, and has properties of low cost, strong robustness, and high-frequency, so it has great potential in practical engineering applications.

Unsupervised Representation Learning-Based Spectrum Reconstruction for Demodulation of Fabry–Perot Interferometer Sensor

This paper presents a novel unsupervised representation learning-based demodulation framework for Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) sensors, which is a straightforward and effective solution for obtaining interferometric spectrum without any optical spectrum analyzers. The proposed framework utilizes a simple spectrum reconstruction method to reconstruct the FPI sensor’s spectrum using relatively low-scale sample points, requiring less manual effort than conventional approaches. The proposed approach involves two steps: first, an optical system converts the FPI sensing signal to transmitted intensity, and second, the unsupervised representation learning-based reconstruction framework establishes a nonlinear relationship between the intensity signal and the actual changing spectrum. The proposed approach is validated using real-world datasets generated from pressure performance tests, achieving excellent performance with a reconstruction error of 0.039nm and a range of 73nm. The results demonstrate the practical potential viability of the proposed framework for large-scale remote monitoring systems.

Simultaneous and Multiplexed Measurement of Curvature and Strain Based on Optical Fiber Fabry-Perot Interferometric Sensors

Optical fiber sensors that have a compact size and the capability for multi-parameter sensing are desired in various applications. This article reports a miniaturized optical fiber Fabry-Perot interferometric sensor with a length of hundreds of µm that is able to simultaneously measure variations of curvature, temperature, and strain. The sensor is easy to fabricate, requiring only the fusion splicing of a short section of the silica capillary tube between two single-mode fibers (SMFs). The combined mechanism of the Fabry-Perot interference occurred in the two interfaces between the capillary and the SMFs, and the antiresonant guidance induced by the capillary tube makes the device capable of realizing multi-parameter sensing. A simplified coefficient matrix approach is developed to decouple the contributions from different parameters. In addition, the capability of the device for multiplexing is investigated, where four such prototypes with different air cavity lengths are multiplexed in a system in parallel. The spectral behavior of an individual device for measuring curvature and strain is reconstructed and investigated, showing reliable responses and little crosstalk between different devices. The proposed device is easy to fabricate, cost-effective, robust, and could find potential applications in the field of structural health monitoring and medical and human–machine interactive sensing.

Ultrasonic Vibration Sensing of Intrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometer Sensor Array Based on Local Spectral Analysis

This paper presents a low-cost integrated intrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer (IFPI) sensor array demodulation algorithm based on local spectral analysis, which exploits multiple local spectra instead of the entire spectrum to achieve ultrasonic vibration measurement well beyond the sweeping period of the tunable laser source. By balancing the demodulation range and the demodulation resolution of IFPIs, this paper divides the entire spectrum produced by a distributed feedback (DFB) laser into 152 local spectra by a sliding window for IFPIs demodulation respectively, thereby implementing up to 160 kHz vibration measurement. To reduce the load on the data acquisition system and simplifies the interrogation system, this paper adopts a nonlinear tuning error compensation method based on an in-line IFPI sensor. In addition, chirp Z-transform is used in this paper to replace the traditional zero-padding-based fast Fourier transform to achieve the local fineness of demodulated optical path difference (OPD) spectrum, so as to reduce the waste of computation caused by zero-padding.

Ultracompact optical fiber high‐temperature sensor based on the angled fiber end face

AbstractAn ultracompact optical fiber Fabry–Perot interferometric sensor is proposed and demonstrated for high‐temperature measurement. The device is simply a section of single‐mode fiber with angled end face of 45°, the reflected light from the angled fiber end face is directed sequentially to the fiber core–cladding and cladding–air interfaces, respectively, and reflected back, and finally returned to the fiber core after being reflected by the angled fiber end face again. As a result, a Fabry–Perot interferometer is constructed. Because of the thermal‐expansion and thermal‐optical effect of the fiber material, the optical path difference between the core–cladding and cladding–air surfaces is changed with temperature, hence the device is well suitable for temperature measurement. In particular, the fiber device has good high‐temperature sustainability up to 1100°C, which makes it attractive for high‐temperature measurement in a narrow or hard‐to‐reach spatial environment.

An All-Sapphire Fiber Diaphragm-Free Extrinsic Fabry–Perot Interferometric Sensor for the Measurement of Gas Pressure at Ultrahigh Temperature

An all-sapphire fiber extrinsic Fabry–Perot interferometer (EFPI) sensor for the measurement of gas pressure at ultrahigh temperature is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor head is composed of two segments of sapphire fiber and a sapphire capillary. By using the femtosecond (fs) laser micromachining, a through hole is inscribed in the sapphire capillary wall to allow the gas flow. This EFPI is used to measure the pressure in the temperature range of 25 °C–1400 °C by monitoring the optical cavity length (OCL) of the interferometer. Experiment results show that the sensor exhibits a good linearity within a pressure range from 0 to 5 MPa at a fixed temperature. The pressure sensitivity of the sensor decreases as the temperature increases, and sensitivities are 1.018 and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.188 \mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> /MPa at 25 °C and 1400 °C, respectively. The proposed all-sapphire fiber pressure sensor has the properties of high-temperature resistance, intrinsic safety, small volume, and large measuring range, which can be used in high-temperature and harsh environments.

FPI and MZI combined high-sensitivity sensor based on PDMS microcavity

In this paper, an optic-fiber temperature sensor is proposed with an innovative structure design and sensing theory combination. The structure design is consisted of classic SMSMS structure and a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microcavity, which is formed by inserting single mode fibers (SMF) and multimode fibers (MMF) from both ends of a hollow core fiber (HCF) filled with uncured PDMS. By adjusting the length (L) of the cavity into proper value, the reflection temperature sensitivity reaches up to −567.86 pm/℃, and the transmission sensitivity reaches −120.69 pm/℃. Due to the presence of the PDMS microcavity, the reflection spectrum achieved highly sensitive temperature Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) sensor. Moreover, a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) temperature sensor also formed by monitoring the transmission spectrum, and its temperature sensitivity is elevated about 7 and 1.2 times compared with the pure splicing SMSMS and the splicing + PDMS coating structure. By deploying the PDMS microcavity, FPI sensor and MZI sensor were combined inside one device with significant temperature sensing performance, and these two combined sensors can cross-correct within the intersected detection range. With simple manufacture steps, higher temperature sensitivity and bigger sensing range are achieved.