Magnetic Field Sensor Using Fiber Ring Cavity Laser Based on Magnetic Fluid

Abstract

A magnetic field sensor using fiber ring cavity laser based on magnetic fluid (MF) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. MF-coated single-mode-no-core-singlemode fiber structure is inserted in the fiber ring laser cavity, which acts as a bandpass filter and the magnetic field sensing component simultaneously. The excellent bandpass filtering with a high side-mode suppression ratio (14 dB) and small insert loss of around (-1.03 dB) is caused by the self-imaging effect. The experimental results show that the lasing wavelength shifts to blue side with the increase of external magnetic field. The magnetic field sensing sensitivity of 12.05 pm/Oe is achieved within the range of 15.9-222.32 Oe. This configuration exhibits obvious advantages in term of high visibility (~40 dB) and relative narrow 3-dB bandwidth (~0.19 nm) of the lasing output spectrum. Therefore, its Q value is more than 10 times larger than those of other reported magnetic field sensing structures.