Optical fiber vibration modal filter for flexible structures produced by the photorefractive effect

摘要

The invention herein provides a method and apparatus for fabricating optical fiber vibration modal filtering sensors. Such filtering sensors are used in vibration control of engineered structures, especially flexible structures. In particular, the optical fiber sensor is made by a functionally weighted exposure of an optical fiber to ultra-violet (UV) laser source thereby modifying the refractive index of the optical fiber core resulting in a vibrational modal filtering sensor using a single mode interferometric detection scheme. The apparatus for making the same uses a multiple reel stepper motor mechanism, a process controller and a UV laser source.