A Stabilized Fiber Laser for High-Resolution Low-Frequency Strain Sensing

Author

Lam, Timothy T Y ; Chow, Jong H. ; Mow-Lowry, Conor M. ; McClelland, David E. ; Littler, Ian C M

Author_Institution

Centre for Gravitational Phys., Australian Nat. Univ., Canberra, ACT, Australia

Volume

9

Issue

8

fYear

2009

Firstpage

983

Lastpage

986

Abstract

We frequency stabilize a fiber laser for use in low-frequency sensing applications. Using a radio frequency locking technique, an Erbium-doped single longitudinal mode fiber laser is stabilized to a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The low-frequency fiber laser noise was suppressed by more than 1.5 orders of magnitude at frequencies below 300 Hz reaching a minimum of 2 Hz/radicHz between 60 and 250 Hz. The corresponding strain sensitivities are 2 pepsiv/radicHz at 1 Hz and 15 fepsiv/radicHz from 60 to 250 Hz.

Keywords

Mach-Zehnder interferometers; fibre lasers; fibre optic sensors; strain sensors; Mach-Zehnder interferometer; erbium-doped fiber laser; fiber laser noise; high-resolution strain sensing; low-frequency strain sensing; radio frequency locking technique; single longitudinal mode fiber laser; stabilized fiber laser; Capacitive sensors; Erbium-doped fiber lasers; Fiber lasers; Laser noise; Laser stability; Low-frequency noise; Optical fiber sensors; Optical interferometry; Optical sensors; Radio frequency; Fiber lasers; frequency locked loops; frequency stability; laser stability; laser stabilization; measurement; optical fiber sensors; strain sensing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Sensors Journal, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1530-437X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSEN.2009.2024040

Filename

5159536