Mach-Zehnder Interferometer and its temperature based applications

Mach Zehnder Interferometer and its temperature based applications

Basic Concept:
3 dB fiber-to-fiber coupler splits the laser output beam 50 % of the light to single mode sensing fiber

Rest 50% into the reference fiber

Another 3 dB coupler used to recombine Combined beam; detected and phase shift measured. Phase shift results from variation in length and

refractive index of the sensing fiber. Based on the path length, the phase and the intensity of the recombined beam are decided.

All Fiber MachZehnder Interferometer Based on Suspended Twin-Core Fiber

Presented by : Orlando Frazo, S. F. O. Silva, J. Viegas,

Jos M. Baptista, Jos L. Santos, Jens Kobelke, and Kay Schuster

Published in : IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY

LETTERS, VOL. 22, NO. 17, SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

Introduction
The temperature sensitivity of a twin-core fiber sensor

with a single cladding and the circular cores is due almost entirely to the linear expansion of the core and the thermo-optic effect. The coupling between the two cores is increased with the spin rate in a spun twin-core fiber. In this work, the authors propose a new sensing head based on a MachZehnder interferometer (MZI) using a suspended twin-core fiber. This sensing head presents different sensitivity when is subjected to curvature or temperature.

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

 Light from a broadband

source in the window of 1550 nm is linearly polarized with a polarizer and injected into the suspended twin-core fiber with a length of 0.33 m Polarization controller was used to induce only rotation of this polarization state. The interferometric fringe pattern observed in the optical spectrum analyzer(OSA)

Working
The angle between the two field orientations(of plane

polarised rays) is ~90 The cores diameters are 1.5 m; the cladding is 124 m; and the big/small holes are 10/5 m, respectively. The distance between the two cores is approximately 8.6 m, where it is possible to illuminate the two cores simultaneously using a standard single-mode fiber (SMF 28). The bridge that connects the two cores is very thin, hence no coupling between the two cores is expected. The splices were made using a conventional splice machine

Temperature Sensitivity
The interference fringe spacing variation of the MZIs

for temperature variation was also characterized. The fiber was placed in an oven where the temperature could be set from room temperature up to 100 C with an error smaller than 0.1 C because this sensing structure operates in a differential mode, cores should have common temperature effect But so doesnt happen. Reason : due to small core dimensions, modal evanescent field into the air holes occurs, different for x & y plane because of geometrical asymmetries

 If i (i=x,y)are the

interference fringe spacing variations of the interferometers for the two polarizations induced by temperature T and curvature C variations, then it is possible to write the following matrix equation:

 Where D=KT(y)KC(x) KC(Y)KT(x) Where T and C are in degrees centigrade and m-1 ,

respectively, while the wavelengths shifts are in nanometres. The performance of this measurement approach was tested varying the temperature at constant curvature and reciprocally, i.e., varying the curvature at constant temperature. The experimental determination of x and y permitted us to obtain the measured values for and which T and C are compared with the effectively applied ones.

Conclusion
In the present work, it was possible to obtain a new sensing

head based on a twin-core fiber that allows us to obtain distinct interferometric signals associated with the two principal linear polarization states of the input light to the sensing head. These signals show substantially different sensitivities to temperature variations, A feature that is not present when considering the implementation of a sensing head of this type with standard twin-core fibers. This characteristic permits much higher design flexibility, in particular turns fairly easy to perform with good accuracy simultaneous measurement of curvature and temperature.

High-Temperature Sensing Using Miniaturized Fiber In-Line MachZehnder Interferometer

Presented by: Ying Wang, Yuhua Li, Changrui Liao,

D. N. Wang, Member, IEEE, Minwei Yang, and Peixiang Lu

Published in: IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY

LETTERS, VOL. 22, NO. 1, JANUARY 1, 2010

Introduction
A number of optical fiber high-temperature sensors

have been developed, such as fiber Bragg grating (FBG), long-period fiber grating (LPG), and interferometer-based systems Recently, fiber in-line MachZehnder interferometers (MZIs) based on interference between the guided modes of the fiber, including single-mode fiber (SMF), multimode fiber (MMF), and PCF, have been proposed for temperature measurement The commonly used splitter/combiners include LPGs, tapers, sections of MMF or PCF, and other elements that may cause core diameter mismatch

Principle
temperature sensitivity originates from the difference of

the temperature coefficients of refractive index between the fiber core and air

Experimental Setup
The input light split into two parts by the micro cavity:

Iin1 and Iin2 ; guided and unguided modes respectively The guided beam travels through the fiber and the non guided one through the micro-cavity, and interference occurs when both the o/p beams recombine If the cavity length is L; and considering low reflectivity, multiple reflections can be neglected, then intensity of the recombined beam can be given as:

 Where the above relation gives index difference between guided and

unguided mode.

Assuming the cavity length L is kept constant, the temperature

sensitivity from (1) could be derived as follows, when

cladding is function of temperature. And d eff/dT for core and cavity are the temperature coefficients of refractive index of the fiber core and cavity medium :

eff

for core and

Fabrication
Femtosecond laser pulses (=800nm) of the duration of 120

fs and the repetition rate of 1 kHz were focused onto the fiber by a 10Xobjective lens with an NA value of 0.25 and a working distance of 7mm in the experiment The microcavity was fabricated by femtosecond pulse ablation with a scanning speed of 20 m s along the fiber length. After each scanning cycle, the focal spot of the laser beam was moved closer to the fiber core with a step of 400 nm before the next cycle started, until the largest fringe visibility was obtained. The micro-cavity created was cleaned with methanol after the processing was completed.

Fig. 2(a) shows the transmission spectra at a number of temperature points and it can be clearly seen from the figure that the dip shifts toward the longer wavelength with the increase of temperature. Fig. 2(b) presents the variation of dip wavelength with the temperature change, the results obtained show repeatability for the heating and cooling processes and a sensitivity of 0.046 nm C can be obtained

The FSR of the interference dip of interest is determined by the cavity length L as

A smaller FSR would improve the accuracy of the measurement, which calls for a larger L. However, a larger L would increase the insertion loss and degrade the mechanical quality of the device.

Fiber In-Line MachZehnder Interferometer Embedded in FBG for Simultaneous Refractive Index and Temperature Measurement
Presented by- C. R. Liao, Student Member, IEEE, Ying

Wang, D. N. Wang, Member, IEEE, and M. W. Yang Published in- IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, Vol. 22, No. 22, NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Introduction
The in situ measurement of liquid refractive index is of

great value Used in chemical, biological and many other applications Major concern in determination- Temperature crosssensitivity which leads to an unreliable measurement It is desired that temperature and refractive index be measured simultaneously and unambiguously

 Recent optical fibers RI sensors have the following

advantages

Compact size Immunity to electromagnetic interference Capability of multiplexing Remote sensing

Optical fiber sensors for simultaneous RI and

temperature measurement can be obtained by

Using single sensing element such as slanted fiber BRAGG grating Disadvantage-Small RI sensitivity Adopting a combination of multiple sensor elements such as hybrid structure of FBG and long period grating Disadvantage-Large system size and inaccurate sensing location

Principle and analysis

Temperature response of FBG dFBG /dT= FBG .(core+) core =thermo optic coefficient~8.6*10-6 /C = thermal expansion coefficient~ 0.55*10-6 By removing part of the core near the core and cladding interface, a fiber in line MZI can be constructed

 The light wave propagating along the ber core is split

into two beams, denoted by Iin1 and Iin2 One beam remains propagating in the core while the other travels through the cavity When the two output beams, Iout1 and Iout2 , are recombined in the core, interference takes place due to the phase difference induced by the effective RI difference between the ber core and the cavity The output intensity is given by

I=Iout1+Iout2+2(Iout1Iout2)cos(+o) = 2L n/ is the phase difference o = Initial phase n=neffcore neffcavity

 Assuming L as constant the temperature response is

given by

dm(MZI) /dT= m(MZI) /( neffcore -neffcavity )*( core- cavity) dm(MZI) /dT= m(MZI) /( neffcore -neffcavity )*((d neffcore /dn)-(d neffcavity/dn))

The RI response is given by

Optical microscope image of the sensor

Experimental Setup
The FBG inscribed in single mode fiber by fs laser

irradiation through phase mask Laser pulses produced (120fs,1mJ,1khz,800nm) by a Ti:sapphire laser system Laser beam focused onto fiber core by cylindrical lens (f=40mm) Length of the inscribed grating ~4mm Microcavity created by using a laser beam focused onto the FBG by a 10x objective lens(NA=0.25) On target laser power used ~12mW Fiber with FBG mounted on a PC controlled three axix translation stage

Experiment and Results

In principle, the temperature and RI information can

be recovered simultaneously by use of a standard matrix inversion method Matrix elements are determined by temperature and RI responses Temperature performance determined by placing the sensor in tubular oven Temperature control range 22-100oc with resolution of 0.1 oc It is observed that both FBG and m(MZI) increase linearly with time

 To investigate RI performance, the room temperature

of 22oC was maintained, and the sensor was sequentially immersed into a set of index matching oils ranging from 1.300 to 1.400 (at 489.3 nm) with a step of 0.005 Isopropanol used after each test to remove the residual oil and to make it dry It is observed that an increase of the RI value leads to a blue shift of m(MZI) , while FBG is essentially unchanged. It is observed that m(MZI) is extremely sensitive to the RI change with an almost linear response, whereas FBG remains to be a constant.

 According to two

separate temperature and RI measurements, the two equations for FBG and m(MZI) Thus T and n can be determined from the matrix by