APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 89, 111101 2006

Optical-ber interferometer for velocity measurements with picosecond resolution

Jidong Weng,a Hua Tan, Xiang Wang, Yun Ma, Shaolou Hu, and Xiaosong Wang
Laboratory for Shock Waves and Detonation Physics Research, Institute of Fluid Physics, P.O. Box 919-102, Mianyang, Sichuan 621900, China

Received 22 November 2005; accepted 25 June 2006; published online 11 September 2006 The conventional Doppler laser-interference velocimeters are made up of traditional optical elements such as lenses and mirrors and will generally restrict its applications in multipoint velocity measurements. By transfering the light from multimode optical ber to single-mode optical ber and using the currently available conventional telecommunications elements, the authors have constructed a velocimeter called all-ber displacement interferometer system for any reector. The unique interferometer system is only made up of bers or ber-coupled components. The viability of this technique is demonstrated by measuring the velocity of an interface moving at velocity of 2133 m / s with 50 ps time resolution. In addition, the concept of optical-ber mode conversion would provide a way to develop various optical-ber sensors. 2006 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2335948 A velocity interferometer system for any reector VISAR determines the velocity of an accelerating or vibrating surface by measuring the Doppler shift of laser light reected off the surface using an interferometer with a xed delay time between its legs.1 This delay time converts the Doppler frequency shifts into the fringe shifts in the interferometer outputs. When a laser beam of frequency 0 or wavelength 0 shoots upon a moving surface, it will be reected by the surface with a slightly different frequency. Two reected light beams with slightly different frequency shifts will interfere with each other and form fringes. The velocity change corresponding to per fringe increase is dened as the fringe constant F of a VISAR device, F =
0

The velocity of the moving surface at time t, u t , is related to the total fringe number N t counted from zero time or the reference time point via u t 1 2 =N t Fv 1+ , 2

where is a correction parameter due to the frequency dispersion of the laser beam propagating in the talon2 and can be calculated by the refraction index of the talon. Equation 2 implies that the maximum acceleration which could be detected by a VISAR device is limited by the bandwidth of the detectors and the digitizers, and any loss of the fringes during the whole time period of the experiment observation will result in large uncertainties in velocity history. The traditional VISARs are often bewildered by the fringe loss upon high-acceleration or instantaneous process measurements owing to the slow response of the photodetectors.3 Such a VISAR, for example, cannot be used to measure the ne structure of the detonation wave front, or of the fast chemical reactions wave, and of a strong shock wave front. Aiming at the above tasks, a velocimeter, called
a

all-ber displacement interferometer system for any reector DISAR , has been developed to conduct the continuous velocity measurements for fast processes taking place within tens of picoseconds. By using the DISAR device instead of the ordinary VISAR, there is no need to dispute if the experimental record losses an integer fringe number or a fraction fringe number, because the interference principle of this DISAR is different from that of conventional VISAR. Figure 1 is a sketch diagram illustrating the basic structure and working principle of the DISAR. The laser beam from the light source 1 is split into two rays by a singlemode ber splitter 2 : one ray is directed to a 3 3 singlemode ber coupler 7 and is used as the reference light for interference; the other one will transmit through a singlemode ber circulator 3 and focus on the moving surface 6 of the target by the measurement head 5 . The light reected from the moving surface, which carries the messages of the moving object, will be collected by the measurement head and transmitted back again into circulator 3 through a multi-single mode converter 4 which can be replaced by the combination of a high-gain EDFA erbium doped ber amplier and a ber lter. Only those light beams with correct modes can be transmitted into the 3 3 single-mode ber coupler 7 through the multi-single mode converter and interfered there with the reference beam. Three output signals from the coupler 7 will be detected and nally recorded by fast oscilloscopes. Just as the Michelson interferometer, the intensity of the output signals could be described by the well-known two-beam interference formula. Two of the three outputs, after normalized, are expressed as follows: y 1 t = I0 1 + cos 4 st + , 2 3 3

y 2 t = I0 1 + cos 4

st

Electronic mail: wengjd1234@etang.com

where I0 denotes the strength of the light source, s t is the dynamic displacement of the moving surface, and is the initial phase of the output signal before the movement of the surface. We calculate s t via Eqs. 3 and 4 from the ex-

0003-6951/2006/89 11 /111101/3/$23.00 89, 111101-1 2006 American Institute of Physics Downloaded 16 Mar 2011 to 83.229.216.164. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://apl.aip.org/about/rights_and_permissions

111101-2

Weng et al.

Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 111101 2006

FIG. 1. Diagram of all-ber displacement interferometer system for any reector DISAR . The measurement head consists of two lenses of diameter of 21.5 mm and focus length of 40 mm. The maximal focal depth of the lens system is 12 mm. A step-index multimode ber with numerical aperture of 0.11 was used to collect the light from the measurement head and transmitted it into the multi-/single-mode converter. The transfer efciency of the converter is about 1% at present.

periment and nally obtain the velocity u t of the moving surface. Neither optic elements for polarization control nor talon for time delaying is needed, which makes our DISAR very compact and becomes a real instrument free of adjustment. Just as in the conventional VISAR system where the two output signals have a phase difference of 90, a 3 3 single-mode ber coupler of the DISAR produces a phase shift of 120 among the three outputs,4 which not only enhances the resolution of the signals but also simplies the judgment of the moving directions of the object. We tested the interferometer by measuring the movement of a mirror attached to the diaphragm of a radio receivers speaker. A 20 mW, 1550 nm laser with a 1000 m length of coherence was used as the light source and photodiodes as the detectors. Figure 2 shows a typical record of the output signals where the M-like and W-like trips signify the reversion of the vibration direction of the speakers diaphragm.5 Since the DISAR interferometer measures directly the Doppler frequency shift, the displacement s t of the moving surface at any time t is related to the fringe number6 N t by st =
0

2 1 + v/v0

Nt ,

where 1 + / 0 is a correction due to the change in the refraction index of the window material under shock compressions.7 The velocity of the moving surface u t is deduced by ut = 2 1 + v/v0 Ft , 6

fringes before time t will not affect the velocity at this time. Since the polarization mode dispersion of the single-mode ber is very small, its bandwidth is usually superior to 10 GHz when the ber is only a few meters in length. The maximal velocity that the DISAR can response will exceed 8 km s1 if the bandwidth of the detectors and oscilloscopes are wide enough. With ordinary telecommunication detectors, it is easy to realize the above goals, and we have recently constructed such a DISAR and measured successfully the velocity history of a free surface moving at 5000 m s1 without any fringe loss. The fringe visibility is dened as Imax Imin / Imax + Imin , where Imax and Imin denote, respectively, the maximum and minimum intensities of the local output signal. It is easy for DISAR to obtain a signicant fringe visibility simply by adjusting the strength of the two interference light beams, and by adding an EDFA and a ber lter even higher fringe visibility can be obtained. Ability of the DISAR was further demonstrated through a light-gas gun experiment in which a yer plate moving at velocity of 4360 m / s impacted upon a driver plate of the same material on which a single-crystal LiF window was placed. Velocity measurements of this order are often a big challenge to conventional VISAR device because of the fringe loss. Particle velocity prole at the driver-plate/ transparent window interface was calculated from the recorded signals of Fig. 3 and was presented in Fig. 4. In the experiment, the multimode ber used to transmit the light beam reected from the moving interface has a core diameter of 600 m and 1 m length. The ultimate particle velocity calculated from the DISAR records was 2133 m / s, which

where F t = dN / dt is the frequency of the fringe counted from the records. Equation 6 means that any loss of the

FIG. 3. Typical DISAR signal records from a light-gas gun experiment. The wave carried information of the velocity prole at the metal sample/ transFIG. 2. Interference signals of DISAR of the harmonic vibration. parent window interface. Downloaded 16 Mar 2011 to 83.229.216.164. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://apl.aip.org/about/rights_and_permissions

111101-3

Weng et al.

Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 111101 2006

FIG. 4. Particle velocity prole calculated from Fig. 3.

FIG. 5. The waves extracted from Fig. 3 showing a 7 ns period of the beat frequency.

matched the expected value very well. A very short piece of wave signal for 7 ns was extracted from the records of Fig. 3 and presented in Fig. 5. We attribute the rapid variation in fringe visibility of this piece of signal to the instability of the multi-single mode converter.8 This interpreted why the intensities of the DISAR output signals in Fig. 3 oscillate dramatically. The signicance of this technology is twofold. Firstly, it is a simple, convenient, compact, and reliable diagnostic instrument for detecting very fast processes that take place in a very short time period of a few tens of picoseconds. In the above gas-gun experiment, the leading edge of the velocity prole is only 125 ps, the total response of DISAR is better than 50 ps including the digitizer. Secondly, it demonstrated that interference with the reference light in the single-mode ber can still be realized when the signal light in the multimode ber transmits into the single-mode ber through a

multi-single mode converter. This phenomenon would provide a pattern to develop various unique ber-optic sensors. More compact DISAR with higher response are under test. This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant No. 10232040.
1 2 3

L. M. Barker and R. E. Hollenback, J. Appl. Phys. 43, 4669 1972 . L. M. Barker and K. W. Schuler, J. Appl. Phys. 45, 3692 1974 . W. F. Hemsing, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 50, 73 1979 . 4 S.. K. Sheem, Appl. Phys. Lett. 35, 914 1979 . 5 S. K. Sheem and T. G. Giallorenzi, Appl. Phys. Lett. 37, 869 1980 . 6 R. D. Sante and L. Scalise, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 73, 1321 2002 . 7 J. L. Wise and L. C. Chhabildas, Sandia National Laboratories Report No. SAND-850310C unpublished . 8 J. D. Weng, H. Tan, S. L. Hu, Y. Ma, and X. Wang, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 76, 093301 2005 .

Downloaded 16 Mar 2011 to 83.229.216.164. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://apl.aip.org/about/rights_and_permissions