SST/Collaborative Research: Development of In-fiber Whitelight Interferometric Sensor for Absolute Distance Measurement and Characterization of Micro/Nano Scale Structures

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ABSTRACT0528681PI: Haiying HuangPurdue UniversityOptical fiber sensors have been exploited for displacement measurement, temperature sensing, medical diagnosis, and confocal microscopy, due to their compact size, light weight, remote operation, and immunity to electro-magnetic interference. Development of an in-fiber whitelight interferometric distance sensor based on the mode coupling effect of a long period fiber grating is the major research thrust of this project. An efficient fringe-matching algorithm will be developed to extract the absolute distance from the whitelight fringe spectrum. The advantages of the proposed distance sensor include absolute distance measurement, large dynamic range, simultaneous distance and temperature measurement, and self-calibrated high-speed data interrogation. The proposed distance sensor will be applied to the near-field surface profiling of nanoscale structures and mechanical testing of MEMS thin film materials. Successful development of this sensor will have a profound impact on multiple disciplines including nanotechnology, Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), manufacturing process monitoring, materials research, and life science. Undergraduate students and graduate students will participate in the development effort, acquiring skills in multiple disciplines and summer projects and demonstrations will be offered for the minority outreach programs. This is a project supported under the Sensor Initiative NSF 05-526.