Steady developments in cost and reliability in fiber optic sensors have seen an increase of their deployment in numerous
monitoring and detection applications. In high-end applications, greater resolution is required, especially in systems
where the environment is quiet, but the signal is weak. In order to meet these requirements the most dominant noise
source, laser frequency noise, must be reduced. In this paper we present a quasi-static strain sensing referenced to a
molecular frequency reference. A DFB CW diode laser is locked to a fiber Fabry-Perot sensor, transferring the detected
signals onto the laser frequency and suppressing laser frequency noise. The laser frequency is then read off using an
H13C14N absorption line. Phase modulation spectroscopy is used to both lock the laser to the sensor and read off the
signals detected by the sensor. The technique is capable of resolving signals below 1 nanostrain from 20 mHz, reaching a
white noise floor of 10 picostrain at several Hz.
A fiber accelerometer array is presented with an unprecedented breakthrough combination of high acceleration resolution
after 100 km of fiber, in a bandwidth down to the infrasonic, with high multiplexing density and low crosstalk. The
demonstrated resolution is better than 60 ng/√Hz for all channels down to 10 Hz, even after the 100 km length of fiber.
Moreover, the system can accommodate 80 channels per fiber in wavelength division multiplexed operation with better
than -64 dB crosstalk. The dynamic range is 120 dB in a 300 Hz bandwidth.
We propose active feedback frequency locking of a single longitudinal mode fiber laser to passive, high Q fiber
ring cavities, for filtering excess relative intensity noise, thereby producing shot-noise limited light source for
sensing applications.
We propose and demonstrate a Mach-Zehnder-Sagnac hybrid interferometer for precision sensing. This configuration facilitates immunity from Rayleigh backscatter, polarization wander and scale factor drift in high
performance fiber gyroscopes.
We present the latest results from our multiplexed fiber optic Fabry-Perot acoustic sensor array using modulated lasers. It
offers the possibility of a robust, reliable and easy to deploy system, meeting the demands of geophysical survey.
We present a highly sensitive detection system for quasi-static strain, employing radio-frequency modulation
interferometry and absolute frequency referencing, demonstrating a few tens of pε/√Hz sensitivity between 1 -
6 Hz.
The interrogation, via optical fiber, of fiber Fabre Perot interferometers using laser based radio frequency modulation
techniques, can provide ultra-sensitive acoustic sensing over very long distances. The benefits over other fiber optical
acoustic sensing schemes include; immunity to laser polarization, coherence and intensity noise as well as reduced
susceptibility to Rayleigh back scattering. Well defined error signals can be extracted at up to 120 km away. We report
on the first multiplexed system, based on RF modulation interrogation techniques, in a 100 km fiber loop. We examine
the achievable channel density as well as potential limits to strain sensitivity, such as inter-channel crosstalk, in a
multiplexed RF modulated sensor system.
The light-weight, small cross-section, intrinsic reliability, sensitivity and remote operation of the fiber sensor array based
on RF techniques, enable new applications in hostile environments. The technique is free of electronics in the array part
of the system, with all the electronic processing and control located remotely. There are no optical amplifiers or pump
lasers - the technique is entirely passive. With appropriate packaging, an array of either hydrophones or geophones may
be created with applications in security and defense as well as in geological survey.
Chalcogenide glass based optical waveguides offer many attractive properties in all-optical signal processing because of the large Kerr nonlinearity (up to 420 × silica glass), the associated intrinsic response time of less than 100 fs and low two-photon absorption. These properties together with the convenience of a fiber format allow us to achieve all-optical signal processing at low peak power and in a very compact form. In this talk, a number of non-linear processing tasks will be demonstrated including all-optical regeneration, wavelength conversion and femtosecond pedestal-free pulse compression. In all-optical regeneration, we generate a near step-like power transfer function using only 2.8 m of fiber. Wavelength conversion is demonstrated over a range of 10 nm using 1 m of fiber with 7 ps pulses, peak power of 2.1 W, and 1.4 dB additional penalty. Finally, we will show efficient compression of low-power 6 ps pulses to 420 fs around 1550 nm in a compact all-fiber scheme.
These applications show chalcogenide glass fibers are very promising candidate materials for nonlinear all-optic signal processing.
Optofluidics offers new functionalities that can be useful for a large range of applications. What microfluidics can bring
to microphotonics is the ability to tune and reconfigure ultra-compact optical devices. This flexibility is essentially
provided by three characteristics of fluids that are scalable at the micron-scale: fluid mobility, large ranges of index
modulation, and adaptable interfaces. Several examples of optofluidic devices are presented to illustrate the achievement
of new functionalities onto (semi)planar and compact platforms. First, we report an ultra-compact and tunable
interferometer that exploits a sharp and mobile air/water interface. We describe then a novel class of optically controlled
switches and routers that rely on the actuation of optically trapped lens microspheres within fluid environment. A tunable
optical switch device can alternatively be built from a transversely probed photonic crystal fiber infused with mobile
fluids. The last reported optofluidic device relies on strong fluid/ light interaction to produce either a sensitive index
sensor or a tunable optical filter. The common feature of these various devices is their significant flexibility. Higher
degrees of functionality could be achieved in the future with fully integrated optofluidic platforms that associate complex
microfluidic delivery and mixing schemes with microphotonic devices.
We use a radio-frequency (RF) diode laser modulation technique to interrogate a fiber Fabry-Perot (FFP), and demonstrate unprecedented remote sensitivity performance for measuring fiber dynamic strain. We present results for its experimental demonstration in a 5 km remote strain sensing system, where we have attained sub-picostrain/√Hz resolution in an acoustic signal band from 100 Hz to 100 kHz, with better than 300 femtostrain/√Hz sensitivity above 300 Hz. This is unprecedented in sensitivity and broadband performance, unparalleled over such a long interrogation distance. Strain signals are extracted interferometrically from the differential phase between the carrier and its RF sidebands. This elegant architecture is immune to intensity noise in the laser, as well as ambient acoustic and mechanical perturbations in the remote delivery fiber. The excellent frequency discrimination by the FFP also facilitates a superior signal-to-noise ratio, to effectively overcome the random phase noise due to Rayleigh backscatter in the long length of fiber. Furthermore, the interrogation length can be well beyond the coherence length of the laser source. We show that this performance is limited only by the frequency noise of the diode laser source, as all systemic noise sources in the delivery fiber are effectively transparent to the sensing architecture. This remote sensitivity is a seminal demonstration for a range of applications, such as sea floor acoustic sensing arrays, deep sea hydrophone arrays, and remote surveillance. We will discuss upscaling of this single element experiment to multi-element sensing arrays.
We report integrated devices in chalcogenide glass for all-optical signal processing, based on pure Kerr (near instantaneous) optical nonlinearities. We demonstrate an integrated 2R optical regenerator operating through a combination of nonlinear self-phase modulation followed by spectral filtering, with a potential to reach bit rates in excess of 1Tb/s. It consists of a low loss As2S3 chalcogenide rib waveguide incorporating a high quality Bragg grating written by an ultra-stable Sagnac interferometer. We achieve a nonlinear power transfer curve using 1.4ps pulses, sufficient for suppressing noise in an amplified link. In addition, we report photonic crystal structures fabricated by focused ion beam (FIB) milling in AMTIR-1 (Ge33As12Se55) chalcogenide glass. We realize high quality free-standing photonic crystal membranes, and observe optical "Fano" resonances in the transmission spectra at normal incidence. We achieve good agreement with theoretical results based on 3D finite difference time-domain calculations. Finally, we achieve resonant evanescent coupling to photonic crystal waveguides via tapered microstructured optical fibre (MOF) nanowires.
We demonstrate and compare two similar pico-strain sensing techniques by laser frequency locking to a passive Bragg grating Fabry-Perot resonator. One technique uses auxiliary phase modulation while the other employs current modulation of the diode laser source. The former is based on the Pound-Drever-Hall locking technique, while the latter is its variant, as current modulation introduces both amplitude and frequency modulation. The two modulation schemes utilize radio-frequency sidebands to derive error signals from the complex optical response of the fiber Bragg resonator. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate when the laser is locked, these methods detect differential phase shift between the optical carrier and the sidebands, due to minute fiber optical path displacements.
We demonstrate, for the first time, a sensing architecture capable of detecting broadband dynamic strain beyond picostrain
resolution, with signal frequencies extending from 100 Hz to beyond 100 kHz. The system uses a pre-stabilized
external cavity diode laser to interrogate a passive fiber Bragg resonator, using the Pound-Drever-Hall frequency locking
technique. The low-loss resonator comprises of a Bragg grating pair written in standard SMF-28 fiber.
Properties of lasers with frequency-shifted feedback are discussed. The analysis concentrates on the passive characteristics of the cavity. Particular emphasis is given to the case in which the frequency shift is small compared to the free spectral range of a normal Fabry-Pérot cavity with no frequency shift.
Properties of lasers with frequency shifted feedback are discussed. The analysis concentrates on the passive characteristics of the `cavity.' Particular emphasis is given to the case where the frequency shift is small compared with the free spectral range of a normal Fabry-Perot cavity with no frequency shift.
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