High-Temperature Displacement Sensor Using a White-Light Scanning Fiber Michelson Interferometer

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Date
1996-04-16Author
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The primary development of a white-light Michelson interferometer that utilizes a sapphire fiber sensing head is presented in this thesis. Development includes efforts to combat the poor optical quality of the sapphire fiber, minimize polarization mode fading, and preferentially excite the fundamental mode of the sapphire fiber. This thesis demonstrates the feasibility of fabricating a Michelson white-light interferometer capable of measuring displacements in environments ranging from room temperature to 800 degrees Celsius. The sensor developed in this work is capable of measuring displacements exceeding 6.4 millimeters at room temperature, and exceeding 1 millimeter at 800 degrees Celsius.
This thesis also presents the application of this sensor to the alignment of a sapphire-fiber based Fabry-Perot sensor. This technique allows the Fabry-Perot sensor to be aligned so that usable fringes are always obtained. Alignment of the sapphire-fiber based Fabry-Perot sensors has been considered prohibitively difficult.
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- Masters Theses [17908]