Abstract

This tutorial serves as an introduction to the subjects of fiber-optic sensors, their operational advantages, fundamental designs, and present applications. The responses of both multimode and single-mode fiber-optic waveguides to external perturbations will be considered along with the modification of conventional fibers to achieve enhanced sensitivity to certain parameters of interest, e.g., temperature, velocity, magnetic field, radiation exposure, pressure and rotation rate. Specific sensor configurations and performance characteristics are presented by examining some recent devices developed for application areas such as biomedical engineering, process control, remote monitoring, environmental safety, and laboratory diagnostics.

© 1985 Optical Society of America