Abstract
A polymeric magnetostrictive fiber-optic sensor is presented. The sensor uses a newly developed ferromagnetic polymer (WCS-NG1) as the magnetostrictive coating for magnetic field detection. A simple fiber-optic Mach-Zehnder interferometer is deployed; where magnetic field induced magnetostriction effect is detected based on the phase modulation measurement. The magnetostrictive effect has a number of advantages of sensor. It is relatively simple to fabricate on the optical fiber. Optical technique also provides high sensitivity in its measurant. Therefore, magnetostrictive effect is used for the fiber optics magnetometer. Comparison with Tefonol or other conventional magentistrcition sensors, this novel polymeric magnetostrictive fiber-optic sensor is much less complex relatively smaller in size, and optical technique also prevents RF interference that is common in typical electromagnetic type sensors. In this paper, characterization of the material and magnetic properties of the embedded polymer will be discussed. Preliminary results on the magnetic field and current sensing will be presented.