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A Novel Structure for the Intrinsic FabryPerot Fiber-Optic Temperature Sensor

Woo-Hu Tsai and Chun-Jung Lin
AbstractA novel structure of the intrinsic FabryPerot interference (IFPI) fiber temperature sensor is presented. The sensor uses two different core diameter fibers and produces a reflective mirror by fusing uncoated bare fibers. This procedure not only solves the problem of controlling thickness and reflectance of the thin film but also provides easier and cheaper technologies for IFPI fiber sensors. Theoretical and experimental aspects of the intrinsic FabryPerot cavity are described. Both theoretical and experimental results from this novel structure show good agreement with those from the traditional FabryPerot fiber sensor. Index TermsFabryPerot, fiber sensor, variational method.

II. THEORETICAL DESIGN AND FABRICATION The guiding fiber and sensing fiber used for this paper are the Corning single-mode fiber (SMF-28) and the 3M single-mode fiber (FS-SN-3224), respectively. The structure of the new IFPI fiber sensor head is shown in Fig. 1. The Corning SMF-28 fiber is 8.3 m in core diameter with a cladding layer 125 m in diameter and a jacket layer 250 m in diameter. The 3M fiber (FS-SN-3224) is 4 m in core diameter and has the same size of cladding and jacket layers as the Corning fiber. First, we model the fundamental mode function for the step-index fiber with a cosine function near of the axis and an exponential-like function far from the axis, such that [10] (1) , is the core radius of the fiber, and is where the only variational parameter. By applying the boundary conand its derivative to be continuous at ditions that require , the two constants and can be determined by

I. INTRODUCTION NTRINSIC FabryPerot interference (IFPI) fiber sensors are well known for their ability to measure temperature, stain, pressure, and ultrasound perturbations due to their excellent sensitivity, rapid response, immunity to electromagnetic interference, and potential for multiplexing [1][4]. To fabricate in-line FabryPerot interferometers, several methods are used to produce mirrors on the cleaved end of the fiber through vacuum deposition, sputtering in a magnetron system, or electron-beam evaporation [5][8]. Dielectric mirrors of 100 nm in thickness (TiO or aluminum film) have been successfully produced by magnetron sputtering or by producing a total FabryPerot etalon length of approximately 2 m using vapor-deposition techniques [9]. However, it is difficult to control the film thickness and flatness with precision. Moreover, the thin-film mirror will be immediately damaged or deteriorate in quality by the splicing electric arc, and the reflectivity of the FabryPerot mirror will go out of control. It is very important to find an easier and cheaper method that can solve these problems once and for all. We propose a new procedure for producing a novel IFPI fiber sensor that calls for no coating with any high refractive index material but utilizes only the splicing technique that fuses two different core diameter fibers as a reflective mirror in the fiber. The new technique not only has the obvious advantage of an easier and cheaper manufacture procedure but also yields the same measurement results as a traditional IFPI fiber sensor. In this paper, a mode function [10] and coupled mode theory [11] are used to analyze the structure. The theoretical results are studied and compared with the experimental data.

(2) According to the variational principle calculation [10], we need to minimize (3) to obtain a close approximation of the actual field as shown at the bottom of the next page, where is the usual waveguide parameter and is the index profile function. By applying the Mathematica Software, we compute the value for 3M FS-SN-3224 fiber and Corning SMF-28 fiber. The , and the optical speed laser wavelength is (m/s). The results of the values are 0.94555 for 3M fiber and 1.2323 for Corning fiber. Next, the problem of the reflected and transmitted waves caused by the core discontinuity in the fiber waveguides can be solved by the coupled mode theory. A core discontinuous structure in the cylindrical optical waveguide (shown in Fig. 1) is a typical two-dimension problem, in which the fields do not coordinate, with a refractive index profile depend on the where the refractive indexes and two core diameters are given. of the Corning SMF-28 fiber is The core refractive index 1.4488 at 1550 nm, while that of the 3 M single mode fiber is 1.456 at the same wavelength. We assume that all the media in the fiber are lossless and the light is sanded through the guiding fiber to the sensing fiber. Because the magnitude of the radiation modes of this discontinuous structure is negligible [14], in our analysis only the guided modes have been considered in

Manuscript received October 3, 2000; revised January 25, 2001. The authors are with Tatung University, Taipei, Taiwan 104 R.O.C. (e-mail: whtsai@ttu.edu.tw) Publisher Item Identifier S 0733-8724(01)03634-9.

07338724/01$10.00 2001 IEEE

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Fig. 1.

The structure of a FabryPerot cavity with different fiber cores.

the calculation. We will have the reflectance coefficient transmission coefficient such that

and

(4) is the inner product between two modes at the juncwhere tion. Theoretical calculation reveals that the value of is about 6.18% and that of about 93.82%. When the laser is guided into the IFPI sensor, the light reflected from the end surface of the sensing fiber and the interface between the guiding and sensing fibers will generate constructive (i.e., reflections are in phase with each other) or destructive (i.e., reflections are out of phase with each other) interference. If the refractive index and/or the length of the sensing fiber are will be given with changed by perturbation, the phase shift respect to the wavelength of light such as (5) where is the refractive index of the fiber, is the length of the sensor cavity, and is the wavelength of the laser source. The versus the phase shift can be calculated as reflected power [12] sin sin is the input power, is the reflectance of the first where interface, and is the reflectance of the end surface. Depending on the amount of refractive index change or the change in the sensor cavity length due to perturbation, the reflective power will sweep through the maximum and minimum interference effects. These signals can be processed to determine the amount of perturbation. Compare this information with (6)

a known amount of perturbation, and a calibration constant for the sensor can be obtained. If the sensor is exposed to thermal variations, the phase change can be written as [13] (7) is the thermooptic coeffiwhere is the wave number, is the thermal expansion coefficient of the cient, and sensing fiber. Before undertaking the fusion splicing process, it is very important to polish the end of the fibers using four different polishing films. The poor quality of fiber end surfaces will incur ample power losses and degrade the fiber sensor. After precise alignment, low arc currents and short splicing time are applied to make a reflective interface. At the same time, it is also necessary to monitor the reflective intensity by sending the laser light into the fiber splice system. The bare fiber is cleaved to the desired FabryPerot cavity length after this first mirror is formed in the fiber. Next, an end surface as the second mirror is made as by polishing the 3M sensing fiber. The reflectance of the normal incidence reflection is given by the Fresnel law (8) is the core refractive index of the 3M where is the air refractive index. single-mode fiber and The experimental arrangement for analyzing the IFPI fiber temperature sensor is illustrated in Fig. 2. The supported photoelectronics is composed of a laser diode operating center wavelength at 1553.9nm, an InGaAs photodetector, and a 2 2 fused biconical tapered coupler that sends light to and from the sensor head. The transmission fiber is a standard single-mode optical

(3)

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Fig. 2.

Measurement setup for fiber temperature sensors.

fiber (the Corning single-mode fiber, SMF-28). The light source is the single-mode 1553.9-nm distributed feedback (DFB) laser diode with a fiber pigtail that has a built-in thermoelectric cooler MHz). and a very narrow linewidth ( of the laser is about 25 mA, and The threshold current the output power from the fiber pigtail is able to reach 25 mW. The laser light is guided into a Farady isolator, which eliminates the feedback from the fiber into the laser, before the fiber pigtail is connected with a 2 2 directional coupler. The 2 2 directional coupler made of the Corning SMF-28 fiber is used as a beam splitter in our experiment. A portion of light about 50% of the input optical power passes through the 2 2 coupler to the fiber sensor, and the others pass to another coupler branch with an 8 (angled physical connect) FC style connecter. A photodetector is used to detect the reflected optical power and connected with a multimeter to measure the output voltage. A thermocouple, which detects the temperature in the oven and serves as a reference instrument, is also connected with a multimeter. The oven is made of a large copper tube with resistance wires twined around the tube. The fiber sensor and the reference thermocouple are both put in the oven closely. A precision temperature controller is used to control the oven temperature. We utilize the proportional band, integral time, and derivative time process programs to set up the temperature increment rate at 0.5 C per minute. All experiments are performed inside a clean room with stable temperature and relative humidity. In order to have precise measurements, the laser diode is driven by a laser diode controller at 40 mA and 20.05 C and KHz, is simultaneously modulated by a sine wave, from a function generator. The sine waveform with a 600-mV peak-to-peak voltage is applied to the DFB laser diode. Consequently, the photodetector not only receives the changes in the optical intensity generated by the constructive and destructive interferences but also detects the variances in the sinusoidal signal reflected from the IFPI fiber sensor. A lock-in amplifier will process the sinusoidal signals from the photodetector.

Therefore, we can easily have two kinds of data to understand the temperature variation around the fiber sensor. The automation of the experiment can greatly increase the accuracy of the data acquisitions. We set up an automatic proceeding system including a personal computer and a GPIB data aquisition system. The measurement system can record four kinds of data, such as photodetector output voltages, reference thermocouple output voltages, and lock-in amplifier output intensities and phase differences. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The response of the uncoated IFPI fiber sensor is illustrated in Fig. 3. In this case, the FabryPerot cavity length of the fiber sensor is 18.28 mm. The experimental reflectances of the first and second interfaces are about 4.31% and 3.96%, respectively. The compared theoretical results of the first and second interfaces are 6.18% and 3.26%. Due to the missed alignment of the fusion splicer, it is a reasonable result about the difference of the first reflectance of the theoretical and experimental results. For the second interface, the experimental value is close to the theoretical value. The predicted values are based on the calculation according to coupled mode theory for the first mirror and according to the Fresnel relation for the second mirror. In Fig. 3, the dotted line represents the changes of the output optical intensity received by the photodetector, and the period of the intensity oscillation remains unchanged within the temperature range from 30 to 130 C. It is the same as the output results of the coated IFPI fiber sensor, in which the reflective signals oscillate periodically with the temperature. In Fig. 4, the uncoated IFPI fiber sensor is also compared with the Corning SMF-28 fiber sensor that has mirrors coated with TiO . The dashed line shows the results of the Corning fiber sensor with a cavity length of 15.57 mm. The dotted line shows the phase changes of the uncoated fiber sensor calculated from Fig. 3, and the solid line shows the linear fit of these data. It is apparent that the novel

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Fig. 3. The output optical intensity of the uncoated IFPI fiber sensor.

Fig. 4. The uncoated IFPI fiber sensor compares with Corning SMF-28 fiber sensor.

3M IFPI fiber sensor we proposed has a linear effect as good as traditional fiber sensors. IV. CONCLUSION We have proposed an innovative IFPI fiber temperature sensor using the splicing method to fuse different core diameter fibers and to make a reflective mirror. This sensor performs very well in detecting temperature in the range 30 250 C and has the same measurement function as a conventional by coated IFPI fiber sensor. Nevertheless, the operation of this fiber sensor uncoated with reflective materials is much easier

and cheaper than that for the traditional FabryPerot fiber sensor. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Dr. H.-H. Lin for his valuable editorial assistance. REFERENCES
[1] Fiber optic smart structures and skins, in Proc. SPIE, vol. 986, E. Udd, Ed., Boston, MA, Sept. 1988.

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[2] J. F. Dorighi, S. Krishnaswamy, and J. D. Achenbach, Stabilization of an embedded fiber optic FabryPerot sensor for ultrasound detection, IEEE Trans. Ultrason., Ferroelectron., Freq. Contr., vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 820824, 1995. [3] Y. L. Lo, J.S. Sirkis, and C. C. Chang, Passive signal processing of in-line fiber etalon sensor for high strain-rate loading, J. Lightwave Technol., vol. 15, no. 8, pp. 15781586, 1997. [4] H. Singh and J. S. Sirkis, Simultaneously measuring temperature and strain using optical fiber microcavities, J. Lightwave Technol., vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 647653, 1997. [5] H. S. Choi, H. F. Taylor, and C. E. Lee, High-performance fiber-optic temperature sensor using low-coherence interferometry, Opt. Lett., vol. 22, no. 23, pp. 18141816, 1997. [6] C. E. Lee and H. F. Taylor, Interferometric optical fiber sensors using internal mirrors, Electron. Lett., vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 193194, 1988. [7] S. M. Tseng and C. L. Chen, Optical fiber FabryPerot sensors, Appl. Opt., vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 547551, 1988. [8] C. E. Lee, R. A. Atkins, and H. F. Taylor, Performance of a fiberoptic temperature sensor from 200 to 1050 C, Opt. Lett., vol. 13, pp. 10381040, 1988. [9] F. J. Arregui, I. R. Matias, Y. J. Liu, K. M. Lenahan, and R. O. Claus, Optical fiber nanometer-scale FabryPerot interferometer formed by the ionic self-assembly monolayer process, Opt. Lett., vol. 24, no. 9, pp. 596598, 1999. [10] S. C. Chao, W. H. Tsai, and M. S. Wu, Extended Gaussian approximation for single-mode graded-index fibers, J. Lightwave Technol., vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 392395, 1994. [11] T. Tamir, Ed., Guided-Wave Optoelectronics. New York: Spring-Verlag, 1988, pp. 92102. [12] J. J. Alcoz, C. E. Lee, and H. F. Taylor, Embedded fiber-optic FabryPerot ultrasound sensor, IEEE Trans. Ultrason., Ferroelectron., Freq. Contr., vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 302306, 1990. [13] C. E. Lee, H. F. Taylor, A. M. Markus, and E. Udd, Optical-fiber FabryPerot embedded sensor, Opt. Lett., vol. 14, no. 21, pp. 12251227, 1989.

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Woo-Hu Tsai was born in Taiwan, R.O.C., on May 5, 1956. He received the B.S. degree in physics from National Changhua University of Education, Changhua, Taiwan, in 1978, the M.S. degree in physics from National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, in 1980, and the Ph.D. degree in electronics from Glasgow University, Glasgow, Scotland, U.K., in 1996. He joined Tatung University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1982 and is currently working on gas laser and guided-wave optical devices.

Chun-Jung Lin was born in Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., on November 17, 1973. He received the B.S. degree in electronic engineering from Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, in 1998 and the M.S. degree in electron-optical engineering from Tatung University, Taipei, in 2000.