The Dispersion Prperties Of Bulk Glass Current Sensing Head And Its Effect Upon The Sensitivity Of An OCS

The dispersion properties of an optical glass sensing head and its effect upon the sensitivity of a bulk-glass optical current sensor (BGOCS) are theoretically analyzed taking the Jones' Matrix as a mathematical tool and simulated with a computer. The wavelength dependence of the BGOCS's sensing element is also investigated experimentally. In an optical current sensing system, when the fluctuations of the driving current or the ambient temperature of the optical source used happens, the peak wavelength of the source will change. This will result in the fluctuation of the sensitivity of the system because of the existing of the dispersions of the reflection-induced retardance, the Verdet constant and the linear birefringence in the sensing head. The investigation results show that the dispersions will obviously affect the scale factor of the system. Therefore, it is necessary to stabilize the driving current and the ambient temperature of the optical source by some technical means. These results might be useful for the researchers and designers working in the optical current sensing techniques area.