title: Sapphire-fiber-based white-light interferometric sensor for high-temperature measurements.
abstract: We present a fiber-optic temperature sensor with a single-crystal sapphire fiber as the light guide and a sapphire wafer as the sensing element. Temperature is determined by measurement of the thermal dependence of the wafer's optical thickness by use of white-light interferometry. We applied digital signal processing techniques to analyze the sensor's spectrum. A prototype sensor was tested to 1600 degrees C and demonstrated excellent reproducibility. An accuracy of +/- 0.2% full scale was obtained. The sensor is simple, small, and flexible, with potential advantages of batch fabrication and easy calibration.
authors.affiliation: Center for Photonics Technology, The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA. yizhu1@vt.edu
authors.forename: Yizheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Zhengyu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Fabin
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Anbo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wang