Polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber based quarter waveplate for temperature stability improvement of fiber optic current sensor

Abstract

Fiber optic quarter waveplate (QWP) is widely used in all kinds of optical fiber systems such as fiber sensing systems. Specifically, in fiber optic current sensor (FOCS) system, which is now applied in power grids to measure current and monitor operation, fiber optic QWP is a key device and has serious impact on temperature stability and accuracy of the system. We fabricated a QWP using polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM PCF), and studied its impact on the temperature characteristic of a home-made FOCS system. We also made a QWP with conventional polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) for comparison purposes. The measured system error of the FOCS prototype using a QWP made of PM PCF between −40°C and 70°C was 8.45‰, which is five times smaller than with a QWP made of conventional PMF.

Keywords:

• fiber optic quarter waveplate
• polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber
• fiber optic current sensor
• phase retardation
• temperature stability

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the national Key Basic Research and Development Program of China under Grant 2010CB735904, the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China under Grant No. 2012AA041203 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 61007054.