Fiber-optic hydrophone using a cylindrical Helmholtz resonator as a mechanical anti-aliasing filter.
Two Michelson interferometric fiber-optic hydrophones that use panda polarization-maintaining fibers and devices have been constructed and tested. The low-frequency acoustic sensitivities of both hydrophones are -159 dB re 1 rad/microPa. One of the hydrophones tested has a small cylindrical Helmholtz resonator that has a break point near 1200 Hz and a measured roll-off of approximately 50 dB/octave, and it is a hydrostatic-pressure-insensitive design. This hydrophone is a prototype device for a class of sensors that can be used to eliminate aliasing in future sonar systems. To our knowledge, this is the first time that such a fiber-optic hydrophone has been reported.