Determination of Methanol Concentration in Ethanol in Liquid Phase by a Phononic Crystal Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

A practical and portable ultrasonic interferometric sensor to detect methanol concentration in ethanol in the liquid phase is numerically investigated. For high-sensitivity operation, the sensor is designed as a Mach-Zehnder interferometer based on a linear-defect waveguide in a two-dimensional phononic crystal, which consists of square array of cylindrical steel rods in water. The waveguide core comprises polyethylene tubing, impedance-matched with water, filled with either pure ethanol or ethanol-methanol binary mixture, allowing fast replacement of the analyte. Band structure analyses through the finite-element method are carried out to obtain guiding modes at frequencies around 200 kHz. With 50x21 cells with 4.2 mm periodicity, the total sensor area is 210-by-88.2 millimeters, which can be significantly reduced by increasing the operating frequency to megahertz range. The interferometer is constructed via T junctions of the waveguide, which facilitates low-loss equal splitting and recollection of ultrasonic waves. Sample and reference wave paths are constructed by filling polyethylene tubing on the upper and lower halves of the interferometer with the ethanol-methanol mixture and pure ethanol, respectively. Frequency-domain finite-element method simulations reveal that the sensor output is characterized by several transmission peaks, one of which is centered at 203.35 kHz with a full-width at half-maximum of 20 Hz, resulting in a quality factor of 10167. The peak frequency of this peak redshifts at a rate of 7.24 Hz per percent volume fraction change in methanol. The peak shift is linear when the methanol volume fraction is below 10%. Besides, the interferometric sensor has a figure of merit around 0.35. The proposed ultrasonic sensor offers rapid detection of methanol content in ethanol with high sensitivity.

A High-Speed Demodulation Technology of Fiber Optic Extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometric Sensor Based on Coarse Spectrum

A fast real-time demodulation method based on the coarsely sampled spectrum is proposed for transient signals of fiber optic extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometers (EFPI) sensors. The feasibility of phase demodulation using a coarse spectrum is theoretically analyzed. Based on the coarse spectrum, fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm is used to roughly estimate the cavity length. According to the rough estimation, the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) algorithm is applied to calculate the cavity length accurately. The dense wavelength division multiplexer (DWDM) is used to split the broadband spectrum into the coarse spectrum, and the high-speed synchronous ADC collects the spectrum. The experimental results show that the system can achieve a real-time dynamic demodulation speed of 50 kHz, a static measurement root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.184 nm, and a maximum absolute and relative error distribution of 15 nm and 0.005% of the measurement cavity length compared with optical spectrum analyzers (OSA).

The Interferometer of Mach Zehnder and Its Applications

Fiber optic interferometers have been studied extensively for sensing various physical characteristics such as temperature, strain, pressure, and refractive index. Fabry-Perot, Mach-Zehnder, Michelson, and Sagnac are the four different types. In this case, in this study, the operational principles of Mach-Zehnder interferometric sensor are examined. fabrication techniques, as well as application sectors. The technologies of interferometric sensors are described in detail to demonstrate their great potential in practical uses. Mach-Zehnder The interferometer is a device that measures the difference in phase shifts Between two coherent collimated beams. According to this fundamental Principle, various devices can be designed. Several devices, including various types of in-line MZI optical sensors, all-optical switches and modulator, can be created using this basic principle are discussed in this paper.

A Composite Fabry-Perot Interferometric Sensor with the Dual-Cavity Structure for Simultaneous Measurement of High Temperature and Strain

In this paper, an optical fiber composite Fabry-Perot interferometric (CFPI) sensor capable of simultaneous measurement of high temperature and strain is presented. The CFPI sensor consists of a silica-cavity intrinsic Fabry–Perot interferometer (IFPI) cascading an air-cavity extrinsic Fabry–Perot interferometer (EFPI). The IFPI is constructed at the end of the transmission single-mode fiber (SMF) by splicing a short piece of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) to SMF and then the IFPI is inserted into a quartz capillary with a reflective surface to form a single-ended sliding EFPI. In such a configuration, the IFPI is only sensitive to temperature and the EFPI is sensitive to strain, which allows the achieving of temperature-compensated strain measurement. The experimental results show that the proposed sensor has good high-temperature resistance up to 1000 °C. Strain measurement under high temperatures is demonstrated for high-temperature suitability and stable strain response. Featuring intrinsic safety, compact structure and small size, the proposed CFPI sensor may find important applications in the high-temperature harsh environment.