Extrinsic Fiber Sensors

Birefringent crystal, intensity mask or thin film absorbers are most often used as sensor elements in extrinsic fiber sensors. Usually they are integrated into the optical path.

When the external force interacts with the sensing element, the light properties are modulated as well. The sensor has light source, optical path and photo detector parts. The magnitude of measurands is detected similar to intrinsic fiber sensors.

The Applications of Fiber Optic Sensors

Wide Area Sensing and Monitoring

Because of optical fiber’s immune to electromagnetic field, fiber sensors have a big potential in these areas. They are widely used in temperature sensing in building, leakage monitoring along oil pipelines and so on.

The above mentioned applications are called wide area sensing or monitoring. The name means that the sensing covers a wide area. In this area, fiber sensors are divide into two categories: distributed sensor and quasi-distributed sensor.

October 5, 2011

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