1558 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 8, NO.

IO, OCTOBER 1990

Fiber-optic Magnetic Sensor Utilizing the Lorentzian

Force
HARUO OKAMURA

Abstract-A fiber-optic magnetic sensor is designed based on the far. The optical-phase retardation of this sensor has been
Lorentzian force. Optical phase sensitivities of 0.67 and 0.11 analyzed [8]. Frequency-independent measurements of the
r a d / ( A / m ) for ac and dc magnetic fields are obtained with a linearity
ac magnetic field also have been achieved [9], and dc sen-
of 3 decades using 100 mm of Al-coated sensor fiber. A configuration
for multipoint ac field measurement with frequency-independent sen- sors of this type have been found usable in simple multi-
sitivity is proposed. Electric current is also measurabkwith a 2.6- plexed systems [7] by introducing the FDM [lo] tech-
rad/pA sensitivity. nique. Although the Lorentzian force-type magnetic
sensor appears to be a good alternative to the magneto-
I. INTRODUCTION strictive sensors, only preliminary experiments have been
reported to date.
F IBER-OPTIC magnetic sensors have been reported
utilizing the Faraday effect [ 11 and the magnetostric-
tive effect [2]-[5]. The latter have been found to be the
This paper describes the design methodologies for sen-
sor head, fiber-coating material, and thickness as well as
for operating conditions. Techniques for sensitivity en-
more sensitive. Magnetostrictive materials, such as Ni or hancement and multipoint measurement are presented. An
metallic glass are bonded to or coated around the single- application of the sensor to electric current measurements
mode optical fiber in one arm of a fiber-optic interfero- is also described.
meter. For ac detection, a dc bias magnetic field is applied
to the sensing element to optimize detection sensitivities. 11. PRINCIPLE
Bucholtz et al. [3] detected an ac level as low as 70 Shown in Fig. 1 is the proposed sensor head, in which
ff /& ( = 5.5 X lo-’ A/m/&) at 34.2 kHz per 34 a length of conductive-coated sensing fiber freely spans
m of sensing fiber. A technique for dc magnetic-field de- two supports; the fiber ends are clamped. An electric cur-
tection has also been reported [4] that overcomes environ- rent I ( A ) is injected into the fiber coating in the presence
mentally induced low-frequency fluctuations by applica- of orthogonal magnetic fields B ( T ). The Lorentzian force
tion of an ac dither magnetic field. A compact fiber-optic is then induced which is equally distributed and orthogo-
magnetostrictive sensor [5] with a 5-cm amorphous metal nal to the fiber. Magnitude of the induced Lorentzian force
wire transducer has also been proposed that yields f ( N / r n ) is written as
a sensitivity of 1.3 X lop3A / m / & at 1 Hz. Here, a
practical limitation of these techniques is closed loop con- f = BI. (1)
trol of the dc magnetic field to eliminate the hysteresis of fcauses a deflection in the fiber and the resultant optical-
magnetostriction. phase changes are measured with an interferometer.
As an alternative to magnetostrictive sensors, Lorentz- If a sensing fiber with an equally distributed ac load or
ian force-type fiber-optic magnetic sensors have been re- an ac Lorentzian force f sin u t , plus equally distributed
ported [6], [7], These sensors utilize a conductor-coated static load& both orthogonal to the fiber, behaves as a
sensing fiber in one arm of a Mach-Zehnder interferom- clamped-clamped beam [ 111 and, the damping factor, the
eter. The sensing fiber spans two supports and is exposed secondary effects of shear and rotary inertia are neglected,
to an ac/dc magnetic field with a dc/ac electric current, the differential equation governing the small deflection at
respectively, flowing in the coating. The alternating Lor- any point y ( x , t ) on the fiber is
entzian force then causes elastic vibrations in the fiber
which induce optical-phase changes proportional to the
magnitudes of the measured magnetic fields. Phase sen-
sitivity of 0.11 rad/(A/m) with a minimum detection
level for an ac magnetic field of 7.1 X lop3A/m/& Although the Lorentzian force is applied normal to the
with a 10 cm length of sensing fiber has been obtained so fiber, its deviation in the x direction is neglected. E is
Young’s modulus of the fiber, Z, is the moment of inertia
of area, A is fiber cross section, y is fiber weight per unit
Manuscript received December 4, 1989; revised March 26, 1990. volume, and g is the acceleration of gravity. If the static
The author is with NTT Transmission Systems Laboratories, 1-2356,
Take, Yokosuka-shi, Kanagawa 238-03, Japan. deflection due to& is denoted as y 1( x ) and the deflection
IEEE Log Number 9036662. due tofsin u t as y 2 ( x , t ) , then y ( x , t ) = y , + y 2 . There-

0733-8724/90/1000-1558$01.OO 0 1990 IEEE

TI

OKAMURA: FIBER-OPTIC MAGNETIC SENSOR UTILIZING THE LORENTZIAN FORCE
.-......
flber flexural Vibration
6
Fig. 1. Clamped fiber span with an ac Lorentzian force applied normal to
the fiber.
fore, the time-dependent fiber-length change A Lacis given
by line integrating y ( x , t ) and subtracting the dc term as
Here, y1( x ) is well known as yI ( x ) = fo/24Ezz ( L 2 x 2-
+
2Lx3 x 4 ) using span L. y 2 ( x , t ) is obtained by using
boundary conditions for the clamped-clamped beam under
the condition that vibration is small. Then A La, is
l 2
ALac = K1 ~ .& sin ut + K2 ( 7f 2 sin
) 2wt
EI, A-Yw
(4)
where K , and K2 are constants (see Appendix A). The nth
resonant frequency ( w r ) , is written as
using R, = ( n + $ ) 7r (See Appendix B). Particularly at
N
resonance, vibration amplitudes are proportional to& (N
is a positive number and F is the vibration driving force)
if the damping force is proportional to the Nth power of
the vibration velocity [113. If N = 1.O, y2 is proportional
t o f a n d the amplitude of the w-component of the fiber
length change at resonance is also proportional to
fo/Ap2EZZ. Next, optical-phase shifts A+ in the fiber due
to A L are equal to A+ = A Loll, [ 121 where is the prop-
agation constant and J/ = 0.783 in the PANDA fiber E131
used. Finally, the w-component of interferometer outputs
from the sensor at resonance is most sensitively propor-
tional to f0/(Ayw2EI,). Therefore, if f orfo is constant,
thenfo orf, respectively, can be detected. Here, if gravity
is parallel to the Lorentzian force, fo is composed of a dc
Lorentzian force and the gravitational force. AC/DC
magnetic fields can thus be measured from interferometer
outputs by using dc/ac electric current, respectively, in-
jected into the fiber coating. Electric current is also mea-
surable with the same configuration.
111. VERIFICATION OF THE THEORY
The basic sensor setup is shown in Fig. 2, in which an
Al-coated sensor fiber was linearly held in the horizontal
plane with two clamps. The fiber was clamped rigidly by
11
__
1559
polarization I
maintainingfiber
with Ai coating
ac
source
acancor
dc SourCB lock-in
amp.
Fig. 2. Basic experimental setup.
laying it over two metal blocks and joining each block to
the fiber with drops of lead solder. The clamps were sep-
arated by a micrometer to keep the fiber effectively straight
but without imposing any external tension. A horizontal
dc and/or ac magnetic field was then applied perpendic-
ular to the fiber by using an electromagnet, each pole of
which was 120 mm long by 20 mm high and 10 mm wide.
The 120-mm side was horizontal, and the fiber was po-
sitioned so that it lay on the center plane of the two poles.
A Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used, in which the
residual part of the Al-coated fiber, about 100 mm length,
was used as a joule heating phase shifter. The feed-back
signal from the drift compensator [14] was injected to the
phase shifter to stabilize the interferometer at quadrature.
By using this phase shifter, phase drifts at frequencies less
than 9 Hz were suppressed. Amplitude drifts mainly due
to polarization fading were corrected by introducing a sin-
usoidal phase modulation with a constant amplitude but
at a different frequency from the signal. Interferometer
outputs were then divided by this monitor signal thus ob-
taining measurand signals unaffected by amplitude drift.
The resonant frequencies of an Al-coated fiber vibra-
tion were measured and are shown in Fig. 3 together with
calculated values. The calculations used Young's modu-
lus (E(kg/mm2) = 7400 and 6300) and weight density
(y(kg/mm3) = 2.2 and2.7( x forthesilica fiber
and the A1 coating, respectively. The cladding diameter
was 0.125 mm, the Al-coating diameter was 0.175 mm,
and the span length was 98 mm. Experimental values were
in agreement with the calculated values within a deviation
of 10%. The circumferential variation in the coat thick-
ness may be a cause of discrepancies. Shown in Fig. 4
are interferometer outputs and corresponding magnetic-
field drive signals. Here, while measuring an ac magnetic
-
field at 152 Hz with L = 80 mm by applying a 500-mA
dc in the coating, various magnitudes of a magnetic dc
bias field were applied to the sensor to yield different dc
Lorentzian forces. In Fig. 4(a), the applied dc Lorentzian
force direction was opposite to gravity. As a result, the
effective value of fo became smaller than f; thus, the 2w
component was dominant. By contrast, a strong w com-
ponent is observed in Fig. 4(c) in which dc 10 kA/m -
I
1560
10'
L =98.0 mm
Idc=500rnA
ac magnetic lield: 400 Alm rms.
N
I dc magnetic bias field: 5.5 kA/m
8
Q
U
103
t
.l-
: measured values
- : calculated values
10'
5 10
N+ 112 (N: order of resonance)
Fig. 3. Resonant frequencies of the sensor fiber.
Fig. 4. Oscilloscope traces of the interferometer outputs and ac magnetic
field drive signal. AC magnetic field: 152 Hz, - 5 A/m rms. DC:500
mA. (a): The Lorentzian force is opposite to gravity. DC magnetic field:
- - 1 kA/m. (b): Intermediate case between (a) and (c). DC magnetic
-
field: -0.2 kA/m. (c): The Lorentzian force is strong and in the same
-
direction as gravity. DC magnetic field: 10 kA/m. (d): AC magnetic
field drive signal.
was applied parallel to gravity such that fo was much
stronger than f. An intermediate value of fo was applied
in Fig. 4(b) in which w and 2w components both emerged.
The fiber was freed from the clamps and reclamped to test
the reproducibility of output. The three stages, as shown
in Fig. 4(a)-(c), were observed with most of the sensor
heads. However, as the fine stucture of the fiber clamp
and initial microdeformation along the spanned fiber can-
not be held identical, the magnitudes of the dc magnetic
field inducing each stage varied case by case. The theo-
retical basis was thus verified.
IV. SENSORDESIGN
A . Fiber Coating Material and Its Thickness
The Lorentzian force increases with electric current
which, however, raises the temperature of the fiber coat-
ing due to the joule heating effect and accordingly leads
to measurement instability. Therefore, low electric resis-
tivity and large specific heat capacity are necessary to re-
strict the temperature raise. It is also suggested in (4) that
the value of weight density y and flexural rigidity EIz
should be small for high sensitivities. Sensor sensitivities
with Al, Au, and Ni coatings were estimated under the
condition that the temperature rise in the coatings is equal.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY. VOL. 8. NO. 10. OCTOBER 1990
di : normalized claddingdiameter
fiber-coat temperature
raise : identical
1.0.
AI
I
-
- 0.8 ' di=l .O
Eex9
/!&
.-
c) 0.2
0.6
0.4.
0
. di=l.O
Ni, di=l.O
Au,
The calculations used the electric resistivity ( R ( pQ * m)
= 2.65,2.35, and 6.84), Young's modulus (E(kg/mm2)
= 6300, 8200, and 21000), the weight density
(y(kg/mm3) = 2.7, 19.32, and 8.9( X and the
specific heat capacity (C(cal/g"C) = 0.215,0.0312, and
0.105) for Al, Au, and Ni, respectively. The calculations
revealed that A1 provides the highest sensitivity as shown
in Fig. 5 . It was also shown that the highest sensitivity
with the A1 coating is obtained when the coating diameter/
cladding diameter is -
1.22 and the coating thickness
-
should be 14 pm for a fiber with a 125-pm cladding
diameter. This is because the cross-sectional area of the
coating is inversely proportional to electric resistance but
is proportional to the heat capacity. Moreover, the flex-
ural rigidity of a circular rod increases with the fourth
power of its diameter. Therefore, the ratio of the coating
thickness to the cladding diameter can be optimized.
Based on the sensor fiber design described, an A1 coat-
ing was applied by a dipping process. Fig. 6 shows a cross
section of the sensor fiber. A PANDA fiber with 125-pm
cladding was overlaid with a -25-pm-thick A1 coating.
The thickness ranged from 21 to 30 pm at the cross sec-
-
tion and was 10 pm thicker than the value suggested in
Fig. 5 . This is because the 25-pm thick coating provides
good mechanical durability for handling and clamping and
-
yet offers 85 % of the maximum sensitivity.
B. Span
Longer spans can detect more of the Lorentzian-force
energy, and the first resonance at w can provide the high-
est sensitivity. However, w must be higher than several
tens of hertz so that environmental perturbations are
avoided. Sensitivities were experimentally examined for
80-, loo-, and 120-mm spans as shown in Fig. 7, in which
the distance between the two clamps was decreased by 1
pm to eliminate all external tension. The sensitivity with
the 120-mm span was not improved from that with the
100-mm span and the measurement stability was rather
degraded because low-frequency thermal and mechanical
perturbations still had significant energy at the first reso-
nant frequency, which was 57 Hz. Residual stress, small
initial deformations, and anisotropy of the flexural rigid-
ity along the long axis of the fiber may also have caused
 I

OKAMURA: FIBER-OPTIC MAGNETIC SENSOR UTILIZING THE LORENTZIAN FORCE 1561

100 100
ac magnetic field: 2
> 7 Aim ms.. 230 Hz fl
--
0
E 80 - dc magnetic field: -80
0.3Wm U
a
temperature $:
fluctuation -60
3
2- 5
-40 .-
Fig. 6. Cross section of the AI-coated sensor fiber. 4
A
4

-20
-e

A’ room temperature:
21.8 degree(C) f
L

lo2

>
--
n
”
E 10’ ature raise in the coating.

-;
a
loo 102
>
E E
E -” **
r,
.-
J
applied dc: 500 mA
I -
44

a
n
10’
**
10.. a loo
3 10.2 10’’

ac magnetic field, Aim

1 oo
-i!
L
0

Fig. 7. Measurement sensitivity as a function of span length

r,-
10’’

discrepancies. The 100-mm sensor span was thus found
to be the optimum.
C. Clamp
If the fiber supports give the fiber the freedom of rota-
tion, the span-center deflection can be five times larger
than with clamped supports [ 111 thus theoretically provid-
ing higher sensitivity. This, however, could not be real-
ized so far without damaging the fiber, so all experiments
used clamped supports.
D. Applicable Electric Current
Shown in Fig. 8 are the sensitivity dependence of ac
field measurements on dc and the corresponding temper-
ature raise in the coating measured with a thermistor sen-
sor. The sensitivity linearly increased with dc current up
to 500 mA. However, at dc currents higher than 500 mA,
though no additional noise was observed with a spectrum
analyzer in the frequency range higher than 100 Hz,
low-frequency noise emerged due to convection-induced
fluctuations in the fiber-coating temperature. Therefore,
the maximum usable dc with this setup was determined to
be - 500 mA. For dc magnetic field measurements, ac is
used. AC with frequency w does not yield an optical-phase
shift at w due to the joule heating effect. The shift occurs
at 2w as shown in Fig. 9. However, application of a dc
bias current to the ac generates additional optical-phase
shifts at w . Therefore, care must be taken when applying
a dc bias current so that the joule heating effect is kept
negligibly small.
ac:137 mA rms.
.-
10’‘ I 1o 2 1 o3
applied current frequency(f), Hz
Fig. 9. Interferometer output due to the joule heating effect.
E. Sensitivity Enhancement
As shown in the analysis, the ac Lorentzian forcefrep-
resents an ac or dc magnetic field strength, which when
multiplied by fo determines the interferometer output. This
fo can be increased by increasing the interaction between
the dc current and dc magnetic field, thus enhancing the
sensitivity. The sensitivity dependence of ac field mea-
surements on the dc magnetic bias field was measured as
shown in Fig. 10. The interferometer output linearly in-
creased with dc bias field in the region lower than -20
kA/m. However, the output peaked at dc -28 kA/m.
Here, with zero dc bias field, fo is almost equal to 5.7 X’
N/mm ( = gravitational force). With a dc field of
- 28 kA/m and dc current of 500 mA, fo 1.76 x lop5 =
N/mm ( = Lorentzian force) 5.7 X +
N/mm.
Therefore, sensitivity should ideally be enhanced by a
factor of 32 between the two cases. This, however, was
not fully realized in the experiment. The discrepancy may
be attributed to initial bending at clamps, torsion, and an-
isotropy of the coating. With dc bias fields higher than 20
kA/m, the Lorentzian force is more than 20 times bigger
than the gravitational force. This suggests that the high
tensile force generated in the fiber by the large Lorentzian
force has suppressed the magnetically induced fiber vi-
bration amplitudes thus decreasing thc sensitivity.
1562
applied dc: 500 mA
m
c
measurand ac magnetic field:
8 N m rms.
0 10 20 30 40 50
dc magnetic bias field, kAlm
Fig. 10. Sensitivity enhancement with dc Lorentzian force.
If the sensor fiber is oriented such that the gravity and
Lorentzian force are not collinear, sensor vibrations can-
not be precisely expressed by (2). For sensitivity en-
hancement, however, a strong dc Lorentzian force is ap-
plied and the portion of the gravitational force shrinks to
one tenth or less of the entire applied dc load on the sensor
fiber thus providing freedom of sensor orientation.
V. MAGNETIC FIELDMEASUREMENT
By using the fabricated sensor head and optimum op-
erating conditions, magnetic field measurements were
conducted and attained good linearity over three decades
as shown in Fig. 1 1 . A phase sensitivity of 0.67
rad/(A/m) of ac magnetic field was obtained as deter-
mined by the J 1(max) method [15]. The previously re-
ported ac measurement sensitivity [7] obtained without the
sensitivity-enhancing technique can be interpreted as a
sensitivity of 0.17 rad/(A/m) with dc 500 mA. Thus,
the sensitivity in the present measurement is higher by a
factor of 3.8. The minimum detected ac field was 1.27 X
lop3A/m/& at 245 Hz, which corresponds to a phase
sensitivity of -0.85 m rad/&. In the case of dc mea-
surement, the inteferometer yielded a nonzero value even
with zero measurand field due to the interaction between
the ac and geomagnetic field. This value was then sub-
tracted from each output thus obtaining the result propor-
tional to the dc magnetic-field strength. However, sensi-
tivity enhancement was not introduced in the dc field
measurements because, even if a strong dc is superim-
posed on ac, the resultant dc Lorentzian force changes
with measurand dc field and accordingly changes the sen-
sitivity. The dc field measurement attained a phase sen-
siti ' y of 0.11 rad/( A/m) and a minimum dectection of
7.8 a lop3 A/m/& was obtained with ac 300 mA
rms .
The interferometer output noise at 100 Hz - 1 kHz
without any magnetic-field signal was found to be at the
rad level with a spectrum analyzer. Electrical
noise measured with no optical input to the detectors (Si-
p-i-n photo-diode ) and the light source intensity noise
were both -20 dB lower than the -
lop4 rad level.
Therefore, the laser phase noise is assumed to have lim-
ited the sensor sensitivity. Phase noise for each mode of
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY. VOL. 8. NO. IO. OCTOBER 1990
;pan 100mm
ac measurement
frequency 245 Hz
dc bias field
0 dc measurement
applied ac 300 mA rms
sensor resonance 220 Hz
0,
60
ac, dc magnetic field, A/m(ac: rms.)
Fig. 11. AC and dc magnetic-field measurements.
the multimoded He-Ne laser is calculated as 3 x lo-' -
rad, which was obtained by using an interferometer path
imbalance of -40 mm and a spectral line width of -25
kHz [16]. Several combined modes would then yield a
-
phase noise of low4rad which roughly coincides with
the minimum detected phase level of the sensor. The lin-
earity trend in Fig. 11 and the above noise consideration
suggests that the minimum detectable magnetic field can
be improved by eliminating the phase noise, namely by
nulling the interferometer-path imbalance and/or by intro-
ducing a single-frequency light source with a narrow
spectral line width. If a phase sensitivity of lop6rad [15]
is attained with 1-Hz bandwidth, the minimum detection
of 1.5 X A/m/& and 9 x A/m/& for
ac and dc magnetic fields is indicated by extrapolation.
VI. APPLICATIONS
A. Frequency-Independent Multipoint Measurements
Using One Current Source
To date, multipoint measurement with the Lorentzian-
force magnetic sensor has been demonstrated only for dc
field measurements with a current source connected to
each sensor head one by one [7]. This section proposes a
multipoint ac magnetic sensor using only one frequency-
multiplexed current source and yet attains frequency-in-
dependent sensitivities. Shown in Fig. 12 is the response
of the sensor to a dc magnetic field using a frequency-
multiplexed current fi and f2. fi was adjusted to the fun-
damental resonance of the sensor and& was scanned. If
fi andf2 were not too close each other, the sensor could
consistently be vibrated at fi . As the frequency difference
decreased, however, the sensor output was found to fluc-
tuate at the beat frequency. The minimum frequency dif-
ference required for realizing stable measurement was
about 8 Hz.
Based on this, the proposed multipoint sensor is out-
lined in Fig. 13. The measurand magnetic-field frequency
is fB, the resonant frequency for each tandem sensor head
is 5 ( i = 1 , 2, -), and the current source provides
currents composed of frequencies f i i (i = 1 , 2, * * ). fii -
is adjusted equal to 5 + fB or 15 - fB 1 [9] to yield a
Lorentzian force with frequency to cause a resonance
for each sensor head. Another Lorentzian force is simul-
1 -
OKAMURA: FIBER-OPTIC MAGNETIC SENSOR UTILIZING THE LORENTZIAN FORCE 1563

10

>
--
E

s
a
L
3

8
c)
10

E fiuctuation
2 ,d
f.- ,
, I
I
dc magnetic field: 240 Alm
applied ac: 10 mA rms.
Fig. 14. Demonstration of the multipoint sensor with sensor resonant fre-
ac frequency: t i =PZOHz(fixed)
1, :sweep quencies at 364 and 500 Hz.(a) Multiplexed ac current frequencies (164
lo
Hz,300 Hz) and magnetic-field frequency (200Hz).(b) Interferometer
' loo 10' 102 3 output spectrum, which are dominant at 364 and 500 Hz but weak at 36
and 100 Hz.
ac frequency difference,lf ,- f4, Hz
Fig. 12. Sensor response to a frequency-multiplexed current.
dc magnetic field:
measurand magnetic field > 160kAfm

/tB ....
resonant
frequen?
fi
.I..,

metal coated fiber

L
.-c ac frequency: 225-235 Hz
dc bias current: 122 rnA
span: lOOmm
cumm SourCO
Fig. 13. Proposed multipoint sensor with frequency-independent sensitiv-
ities using one interferometer.

taneously generated with frequency5 2fB or 1 5 - 2fB 1. +

Therefore, iffB was small such that Lorentzian force with
5 + 2f, or 15 - 2fB I also caused fiber vibration with a
considerable power even in the presence of the resonance
+
a t 5 f B or 1 5 - f B 1, the interferometer output fluctuated
at the beat frequency of the two Lorentzian forces. The
smaller the frequency differences were, the more the out-
put fluctuated. The minimum detectable fB was about 1
Hz. The maximumfB was limited by the frequency sta-
bility of the measurand field and current source. Fre-
quency components due to other Lorentzian forces can be
neglected by selecting each5 such that none of these fre-
quencies induce resonant vibrations of any sensor head.
Fig. 14 shows interferometer output spectra while mea-
suring ac magnetic fields with one current source and two
sensor heads; the span lengths were 80 and 70 mm. The
sensor heads were tandem on a length of Al-coated fiber.
fi, f2, and f B were 364, 500, and 200 Hz, respectively.
The current source generated two frequencies, fil = 164
Hz andfn = 300 Hz, which induced a sharp resonance in
each head. However, weak spectra also emerged at 36 and
100 Hz corresponding to frequency differences between
the currents and the magnetic field. With this setup, flat
sensitivities were obtained for different magnetic-field
frequencies ranging over three decades by appropriately
selecting current frequencies. This dynamic range can be
expanded by using more stable signal sources. However,
sensitivities were lower by nearly one order than those
with a single sensor which did not use this heterodyne
technique. This is attributed to the fact that the hetero-
dyne uses only one half of the induced Lorentzian force.
B. Electric Current Measurement
Weak electric current was measured using the same
setup as shown in Fig. 2. A measurand acldc current was
injected into the coating while strong dc/ac magnetic fields
were applied. Results on ac measurements are shown in
Fig. 15. AC 0.7 pA shifted the interferometer phase by
1.84 rad rms, as determined by the J1(max) method, in
the presence of a 160-kA/m dc field. DC measurement
sensitivity was 0.48 rad rms/mA with an ac magnetic field
of 6.4 kA/m rms. Considerable improvement was at-
tained over the previws report [16] of ac 5-mA detection.
Here, an additional large dc current was used for ac sen-
sitivity enhancement. This dc, when added to the mea-
surand small ac with w , yields a joule-heating effect even
at W . This, however, is negligibly small compared with
the output reflecting the Lorentzian force. For example,
ac 1 PA at 220 Hz would yield interferometer output of
only 2.6 x lop5mV at 220 Hz when dc 122 mA is su-
perimposed. This value was extrapolated from Fig. 11.
For dc measurements, however, sensitivity enhancement
was not used for the same reason as given in the dc mag-
netic-field measurements.
VII. CONCLUSION
Optimum conditions and measurement parameters for a
Lorentzian-force-type fiber-optic magnetic sensor were
determined. Linear phase sensitivities of 0.67 and 0.11
rad/( A/M) for ac and dc magnetic fields, respectively,
were obtained over three decades by using a 100 mm
1564 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 8, NO. IO, OCTOBER 1990

length of 25-pm-thick Al-coated fiber. The minimum ex- APPENDIXB

trapolated detectabilities were 1.5 X A / m for ac
The resonant frequencies of y2 are derived from 1 -
field and 9 X A/m for dc field per root hertz. The BB’ = 0 , where B and B‘ are given in Appendix A.
configuration for multipoint ac magnetic-field measure-
ment was also proposed by introducing the FDM and het- ACKNOWLEDGMENT
erodyne techniques. The application of the sensor to ac/dc
The author wishes to thank Dr. Y. Fujii, Dr. M. Sa-
current measurement was also presented.
ruwatari, and Dr. K. Iwatsuki for their helpful advice on
The sensor head is simple, small in size, and applicable
this work. He also thanks Dr. H. Kimura and Dr. T. Ito
even to narrow gaps. Further development of interfero-
for their encouragement.
meter phase sensitivity, small-diameter fiber, conductive
coating, and improvements in the sensor’s immunity to REFERENCES
thermal and mechanical perturbations would improve
[ l ] G. W.Day, “Recent advances in Faraday effect sensors,” in Proc.
measurement stability and sensitivity. 6th OFS, 1989, pp. 250-254.
[2] F. Bucholtz, K. P. Koo, A. D. Kersey, and A. Dandridge, “Fiber
APPENDIXA optic magnetic sensor development, ” Proc. SPIE-Int. Soc. Opt.
Eng., vol. 718, pp. 56-65, 1986.
y2 can be written as y 2 ( x , t) = Y ( x ) sin ut, where [3] F. Bucholtz, D. M. Dagenais, and K.P. Koo, “High-frequency fibre-
optic magnetometer with 70 fT /& resolution ,” Electron Lett.,
vol. 25, pp. 1719-1721, 1989.
Y ( x ) = CI cos & x + C2 sin & x + C, cosh & x [4] A. D. Kersey, D. A. Jackson, and M. F. Corke, “Single-mode fiber
optic magnetometer with dc bias field stabilization,” J . Lightwave
Technol., vol. LT-3, no. 4, 1985.

+ C4sinh
4% fg
-x --
Ayw2
and b = JEl,g/Ay.The boundary conditions: y = 0 and
[SI K . P. Koo, F. Bucholtz, D. M. Dagenais, and A. Dandridge, “A
compact fiber-optic magnetometer employing an amorphous metal
wire transducer,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 1 , no. 12, pp.
464-466, 1989.
[6] K . A. Arunkumar, “Ultrasensitive fiber-optic magnetic field sensor,”
d y / & = 0 at x = 0 and x = L determine the constants in Proc. Ann. Meeting OSA, 1985, THK4.
[7] H. Okamura, “Fiber-optic magnetic sensor utilizing metal-coated
as fibre,” Elecrron. Lerr., vol. 23, pp. 834-835, 1987.
cl = K ( ( B - B ’ ) + (AA’- B B ’ ) + 1}/2(1 - BB’)
[8] H . Okamura, “Optical phase retardation of the Lorentzian force-tyoe
fiber optic magnetic sensor,” Electron. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 622-623,
1989.
C, = K ( ( A + A ’ ) - ( A B ’ + B A ’ ) } / 2 (1 - B B ’ ) [9] H. Okamura and Y. Fujii, “Lorentzian force-type fiber-optic ac mag-
netic sensor realizing frequency-independent sensitivity,” Electron.
C3 = K - C1 Lett., vol. 24, pp. 1090-1091, 1988.
[lo] F. Bucholtz, A. D. Kersey, and A. Dandridge, “Multiplexed non-
linear interferometer fiber sensors,” in 4th OFS Tech. D i g . , 1986,
c, = -c, (A2) pp. 63-66.
where [ l l ] L. S . Jacobsen and R. S. Ayre, Engineering Vibrarions wirh Appli-
7 cation to Structures and Machinery. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958.
[12] C. D. Butter, and G. B. Hocker, “Fiber optic strain gauge,” Appl.
Opt., vol. 17, pp. 2867-2869, 1987.
[I31 Y. Sasaki, K. Okamoto, and T . Hosaka, “Polarization-maintaining
and absorption-reducing fibers,” in 5th OFC., Phoenix, 1982, THcc6.
[14] D. A. Jackson, A. Priest, and A. Dandridge, “Elimination of drift in
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[I51 D. A. Jackson, A. Dandridge, and S. K. Sheem, “Measurement of
small phase shifts using a single-mode optical-fiber interferometer,”
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A L is obtained as [16] A. E. Siegman, B. Daino, and K. R. Manes, “Preliminary measure-
ments of laser short-term frequency fluctuations,” IEEE J. Quantum
Electron., QE-3, p. 180, 1967.
[17] G. L. Tangonan, D. I. Persechini, R. J . Morrison, and J . A. Wy-
socki, “Current sensing with metal-coated multimode optical fibres,”
Electron. Letr., vol. 16, no. 25, pp. 958-959, 1980.
The time-dependent component A La, in A L is approxi-
mated as *

AL,, = 2 j L
0 [2 akax ay, + (z)2] ak. (A5) Haruo Okamura received the B.S. and M.S. de-
grees in mechanical engineenng from the Tokyo
Institute of Technology, Japan, in 1971 and 1973,
Therefore, by using y , ( x ) = (fo/24EIz) (L2x2 - 2Lr3 respectively.
+ x 4 ) and y 2 ( x , t ) thus obtaining
He joined the NTT Laboratories in 1973. He
was engaged in research and development on fi-

AL, = K i p
sin wt + K2 ( 2f’ sin
l 7 ) 2wt
ber-optic submarine cable transmission systems.
He is presently engaged in research on interfero-
metric optical-fiber sensor technologies and un-
A~CO~EI, Ayw dersea acoustic imaging systems.
Mr. Okamura is a member of the Japan Society
(A6) of Mechanical Engineers and the Japan institute of Electronics, Informa-
where K 1 and K2 are constants. tion and Communication Engineers.

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