A working-point trackable fiber-optic hydrophone with high acoustic resolution is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor is based on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cavity molded at the end of a single-mode fiber, acting as a low-finesse Fabry-Perot (FP) interferometer. The working point tracking is achieved by using a low cost white-light interferometric system with a simple tunable FP filter. By real-time adjusting the optical path difference of the FP filter, the sensor working point can be kept at its highest sensitivity point. This helps address the sensor working point drift due to hydrostatic pressure, water absorption, and/or temperature changes. It is demonstrated that the sensor system has a high resolution with a minimum detectable acoustic pressure of 148 Pa and superior stability compared to a system using a tunable laser.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.