All fiber sensor array for ultrasound sensing

The field of Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS) is gaining tremendous popularity in recent years. OFS natural immunity to electromagnetic disturbances, inherent biocompatibility and compactness making them highly attractive for ultrasound sensing. Moreover, their compatibility with photoacoustics can make them useful in situations where traditional piezoelectric probes are inadequate. However, the issue of multiplexing individual OFS into an array remains a challenging and costly task. In this work, we demonstrate a straightforward approach for multiplexing multiple broadband OFS for ultrasound sensing by exploiting most of the photoreceiver's bandwidth. The design is based on a recently developed system in which all sensing elements are connected to a single interrogator and to a single digitizing circuit. To mitigate aliasing, the system employs I/Q coherent detection. Synchronization of the sensor interrogation with the excitation enables very high repetition rates (kHz) making it ideal for applications where imaging of dynamic processes is desired.