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Photonic Sensors

, Volume 3, Issue 1, pp 52–56 | Cite as

Temperature-independent torsion sensor based on “figure-of-eight” fiber loop mirror

  • Ricardo M. Silva
  • António B. Lobo Ribeiro
  • Orlando Frazão
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Abstract

An interrogation sensor system combining the “figure-of-eight” fiber loop mirror using a single directional 3×3 fiber optic coupler was proposed. One fiber loop mirror was formed by inserting a length of high birefringent optical fiber at the input ports of the 3×3 coupler. Splicing the output ports of the 3×3 coupler between them created the other fiber loop mirror. The introduction of this second loop gave rise to two polarization states of light with the same frequency but different optical phase. The mechanical torsion sensing head was located at the second loop and was exhibited an average modulus torsion sensitivity of 7.9×10−4 degree/dB. The performance of the sensor was not affected by environmental temperature variations.

Keywords

Torsion sensor fiber loop mirror interferometer 
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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2012

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Ricardo M. Silva
    • 1
    • 2
  • António B. Lobo Ribeiro
    • 3
  • Orlando Frazão
    • 1
    • 2
  1. 1.INESC PortoPortoPortugal
  2. 2.Departamento de Física da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do PortoPortoPortugal
  3. 3.Faculty of Health SciencesUniversity Fernando PessoaPortoPortuga

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