Fiber-optic currents measurements
Polarization maintaining pigtailed laser diodes have greatly increased the ease with which fiber-optic sensors for Faraday current measurements on large pulsed experiments can be deployed. 670, 830, and 1300 nm units are readily available. Such diode lasers can easily be mounted in an RF shielded box along with the simple electronics and batteries to power them. Our units measure 16.5 {times} 8 {times} 6 cm. and have a single external control; an on off switch. They use two 1.5 volt ``C`` cell batteries. By using an LT1073 chip in the electronics the batteries are an energy source rather than a voltage source. These units can provide 100 mA drive to a LT015MD laser diode so that 1 mW of 830 nm fight exits the fiber pigtail for up to 23 hours with no detectable droop in power. For the sensor element twisted single mode low birefringence fibers are wrapped around the region of interest. The fiber pigtail is fused to the sensor section so changes in alignment are avoided. The light exiting the fiber sensor section is immediately analyzed by a compact, 3 {times} 3.5 {times} 5 cm, bulk optical unit which outputs quadrature optical signals into two multimode fibers leading to detectors in a screen room. The system is thus completely free of ground loops and is as immune to noise as the screen room. These sensors have the usual advantages claimed for them and the all dielectric feature was the original reason for their use on our experiments. The ease of deployment however is not usually cited. On our Pegasus II experiment the need arose for a total current measurement at the main header of the capacitor banks. A single turn of optical fiber was easily strung in a 6.4 m diameter circle and attached to laser and analyzer in a few hours.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 10136425
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-93-418; CONF-9305133-1; ON: DE93007970
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: OPTO `93,Paris (France),11-13 May 1993; Other Information: PBD: [1993]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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