An optical fiber hydrophone using equivalent phase shift fiber bragg grating for underwater acoustic measurement

Abstract

An optical fiber hydrophone based on equivalent phase shift fiber Bragg grating (EPS-FBG) with temperature compensation package provides an improvement of sensitivity in underwater acoustic measurement at wide frequency range, from 2.5 kHz to 12 kHz. The acoustic pressure is transduced into elastic vibration of a circle metal disk, resulting in an intensity modulation of the reflected light wave back from fiber Bragg grating (FBG). Experiment shows that the packaged EPS-FBG hydrophone has a minimum detectable acoustic pressure of about 500 μPa/√Hz at 5 kHz and achieves about 18-dB improvement of acoustic pressure sensitivity compared with a regular apodized FBG hydrophone. © The Authors(s) 2010.