A symmetric analogue demodulator for optical fiber interferometric sensors

Abstract

Describes a form of passive homodyne demodulation for recovering a signal of interest from a Mach-Zender optical fiber interferometric sensor. The interferometer uses a 2*2 optical fiber coupler at the input, a push-pull arrangement to stretch the fibers comprising the two legs of the interferometer in a different manner, and a 3*3 optical fiber coupler at the output, generating three phase-modulated outputs. The demodulator uses all three outputs in a symmetric manner to reconstruct the signal of interest. A dynamic range of 115 dB in a 1-Hz bandwidth has been measured for a circuit implementing this scheme. The minimum detectable signal at a frequency of 600 Hz is 220 mu rad/ square root Hz. The maximum acceptable signal at 600 Hz is 140 rad, increasing linearly with decreasing frequency. A schematic diagram of an implementation of the symmetric demodulation technique in analog electronics is presented.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>