An optical wall shear stress sensor based on whispering gallery modes of dielectric microspheres

In recent years, whispering gallery modes (WGM) of dielectric resonators have received significant attention. Based on this phenomenon, many applications have been proposed ranging from spectroscopy [1], micro-cavity laser technology [2] and optical communications (switching [3], filtering [4] and wavelength division and multiplexing [5]). WGM phenomenon have also been exploited in several sensor concepts such as protein adsorption [6,7], trace gas detection [8], impurity detection in liquids [9], structural health monitoring of composite materials [10], detection of electric fields [11], magnetic fields [12, 13] and temperature [14, 15] as well as mechanical sensing, such as pressure [16] and force [17,18]. A remarkable feature of the WGMs of dielectric microspheres is that they can exhibit extremely high quality factors (Q -factors). In literature, Q-factors as high as ∼10 10 have been reported [19]. In sensor applications, Q-factors determine the resolution of the sensor. Since WGMs of dielectric microspheres exhibit such high Q values, proposed WGM based sensors have extremely good sensing resolutions. In this dissertation, a WGM based wall shear stress sensor that is capable of measuring the shear stress directly is presented. The proposed sensor's feasibility is studied both analytically and experimentally. The experimental study included sensor development, fabrication, calibration, frequency response, dynamic range and proof of concept. The sensor showed that it has potential to measure the shear stress in a wide range of Reynolds numbers. Finally, the sensor is tested in a real flow environment to provide the first direct shear stress measurement in a real flow.