Fiber-optic extrinsic Fabry-Perot dc magnetic field sensor

We demonstrate a compact extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer-based fiber-optic sensor that uses magnetostrictive amorphous metallic wire Unitika AF-10 (Fe77.5B15Si7.5) as a sensor gauge for measuring dc magnetic fields. We present a theoretical model based on a Gaussian electric field distribution to analyze the sensor operation as a function of longitudinal air-gap separation. The model shows good agreement with the experimental results. A resolution of 50 nT over a range of 50-40,000 nT with a simple passive temperature-compensation method is obtained.