Temperature insensitive delay-line fiber interferometer operating at room temperature
Temperature insensitive delay-line fiber interferometer operating at room temperature
Environmental temperature fluctuations cause phase changes of the light propagating through optical fibers due to their thermal sensitivity. This limits the stability of fiber delay-line interferometers. Here, we present a thermally-insensitive fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It consists of a hollow core fiber (HCF), which has a low thermal sensitivity coefficient, in one branch and a standard single-mode fiber with a thermal sensitivity coefficient about 25 times larger in the other. By setting their associated length ratio to approximately 25:1, the optical phase of the light in both arms changes by the same amount with temperature, making the difference in their optical paths insensitive to temperature and thus producing thermally-insensitive interference. As the thermal sensitivity coefficient of the optical fibers is itself slightly temperature dependent, exactly-zero sensitivity is achieved at a specific temperature only. We show how this zero-sensitivity temperature can be controlled via control of the relative fiber lengths in the two interferometer arms and set it to room temperature. Further, we show that our interferometer is over 100 times less sensitive to temperature than a single-mode fiber-based interferometer over temperature range as large as 25-50 °C. When considering a simple temperature control that keeps the interferometer within ±1 °C, the demonstrated interferometer achieves over 2000 times lower thermal sensitivity than a single-mode fiber-based interferometer and over 100 times lower sensitivity than an HCF-only based interferometer. Finally, we discuss how the thermal sensitivity of such interferometer depends on the light source wavelength.
Hollow core fiber, optical fiber interferometer, optical fibers, thermal sensitivity
5716-5721
Shi, Bo
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Marra, Giuseppe
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Feng, Zitong
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Sakr, Hesham
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Hayes, John R.
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Numkam Fokoua, Eric R.
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Ding, Meng
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Poletti, Francesco
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Richardson, David J.
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Slavík, Radan
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24 May 2022
Shi, Bo
82147c8a-5263-460b-a260-a863aab0874f
Marra, Giuseppe
e77197ec-35a9-45a5-99dd-2edcaca0cdb1
Feng, Zitong
21760dcd-7979-4733-bc84-dea53c64a81c
Sakr, Hesham
5ec2d89f-ab6e-4690-bbfd-b95fa4cb792d
Hayes, John R.
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Numkam Fokoua, Eric R.
6d9f7e50-dc3b-440a-a0b9-f4a08dd02ccd
Ding, Meng
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Poletti, Francesco
9adcef99-5558-4644-96d7-ce24b5897491
Richardson, David J.
ebfe1ff9-d0c2-4e52-b7ae-c1b13bccdef3
Slavík, Radan
2591726a-ecc0-4d1a-8e1d-4d0fd8da8f7d
Shi, Bo, Marra, Giuseppe, Feng, Zitong, Sakr, Hesham, Hayes, John R., Numkam Fokoua, Eric R., Ding, Meng, Poletti, Francesco, Richardson, David J. and Slavík, Radan
(2022)
Temperature insensitive delay-line fiber interferometer operating at room temperature.
Journal of Lightwave Technology, 40 (16), .
(doi:10.1109/JLT.2022.3177646).
Abstract
Environmental temperature fluctuations cause phase changes of the light propagating through optical fibers due to their thermal sensitivity. This limits the stability of fiber delay-line interferometers. Here, we present a thermally-insensitive fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It consists of a hollow core fiber (HCF), which has a low thermal sensitivity coefficient, in one branch and a standard single-mode fiber with a thermal sensitivity coefficient about 25 times larger in the other. By setting their associated length ratio to approximately 25:1, the optical phase of the light in both arms changes by the same amount with temperature, making the difference in their optical paths insensitive to temperature and thus producing thermally-insensitive interference. As the thermal sensitivity coefficient of the optical fibers is itself slightly temperature dependent, exactly-zero sensitivity is achieved at a specific temperature only. We show how this zero-sensitivity temperature can be controlled via control of the relative fiber lengths in the two interferometer arms and set it to room temperature. Further, we show that our interferometer is over 100 times less sensitive to temperature than a single-mode fiber-based interferometer over temperature range as large as 25-50 °C. When considering a simple temperature control that keeps the interferometer within ±1 °C, the demonstrated interferometer achieves over 2000 times lower thermal sensitivity than a single-mode fiber-based interferometer and over 100 times lower sensitivity than an HCF-only based interferometer. Finally, we discuss how the thermal sensitivity of such interferometer depends on the light source wavelength.
Text
Bo_CompensatedInterf_JLT_final_Vision
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 May 2022
Published date: 24 May 2022
Additional Information:
Funding: Engineering and Physical Science Council Funding
Keywords:
Hollow core fiber, optical fiber interferometer, optical fibers, thermal sensitivity
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 467558
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/467558
ISSN: 0733-8724
PURE UUID: 783e0c31-ab41-47d8-bc4b-8a97b791935f
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Date deposited: 13 Jul 2022 17:10
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:57
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Contributors
Author:
Giuseppe Marra
Author:
Zitong Feng
Author:
John R. Hayes
Author:
Eric R. Numkam Fokoua
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