Abstract
The inherent temperature stability of a fiber voltage sensor is far from industrial requirements. Usually, a special channel for a temperature control is needed. Temperature- dependent birefringence of optical elements, such as a quarter-wave plate and a sensitive crystal, is the main source of temperature-induced drift of sensor parameters. To solve this problem we used a special back reflecting prism as a phase-retarding element, BTO crystal as a sensitive element, and a double-pass scheme. The double-pass scheme enables to diminish the negative role of the optical activity in the crystal, to increase an interaction length and, thus, to enhance the sensitivity of the sensor. The special back reflecting prism demonstrates temperature stability more than 20 times better, than a zero-order quartz quarter wave plate. This permits to decrease the temperature-induced drift of sensitivity. The sensor demonstrates temperature stability of (1.5% from -20 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius) and sensitivity of 0.145% per 1 V rms at 850 nm without using an additional temperature control channel.
