SINGLE-CRYSTAL SAPPHIRE OPTICAL FIBER SENSOR INSTRUMENTATION

In this research program, several optical instruments for high temperature measurement based on single crystal sapphire material are introduced and tested for real-time, reliable, long-term monitoring of temperatures for coal gasifier. These are sapphire fiber extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric (EFPI) sensor; intensity-measurement based polarimetric sapphire sensor and broadband polarimetric differential interferometric (BPDI) sapphire sensor. Based on current evaluation and analysis of the experimental results, the broadband polarimetric differential interferometric (BPDI) sensor system was chosen for further prototype instrumentation development. This approach is based on the self-calibrating measurement of optical path differences (OPD) in a single-crystal sapphire disk, which is a function of both the temperature dependent birefringence and the temperature dependent dimensional changes. The BPDI sensor system extracts absolute temperature information by absolute measurement of phase delays. By encoding temperature information in optical spectrum instead of optical intensity, this sensor guarantees its relative immunity to optical source power fluctuations and fiber losses, thus providing a high degree of long-term measurement stability which is highly desired in industrial applications. The entire prototype for BPDI system including the single crystal sapphire probe, zirconia prism, alumina extension tube, optical components and signal processing hardware and software have shown excellent performance in the laboratory experiments shown in this report