Open AccessMicrofiber interferometric acoustic transducers
Author(s) -
Xiuxin Wang,
Long Jin,
Jie Li,
Yang Ran,
BaiOu Guan
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.22.008126
Subject(s) - microfiber , transducer , materials science , optics , interferometry , laser , ultrasonic sensor , fiber bragg grating , signal (programming language) , wavelength , optical fiber , excimer laser , refractive index , photoacoustic effect , optoelectronics , acoustics , physics , computer science , composite material , programming language
Acoustic and ultrasonic transducers are key components in biomedical information technology, which has been applied in medical diagnosis, photoacoustic endoscopy and photoacoustic imaging. In this paper, an acoustic transducer based on Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) fabricated in a microscaled optical fiber is demonstrated. The transducer is fabricated by forming two wavelength-matched Bragg gratings into the microfiber by means of side illumination with a 193nm excimer laser. When placing the transducer in water, the applied acoustic signal periodically changes the refractive index (RI) of the surrounding liquid and modulates the transmission of the FPI based on the evanescent-field interaction between the liquid and the transmitting light. As a result, the acoustic signal can be constructed with a tunable laser whose output wavelength is located at the slope of the inteferometric fringes. The transducer presents a sensitivity of 10 times higher than the counterparts fabricated in conventional singlemode fibers and has great potential to achieve higher resolution for photoacoustic imaging due to its reduced diameter.