Design of a Fabry-Perot Interferometer Based on Silicon Wafer for Dielectric Gas Sensing Applications

摘要

In this work a design and analysis of a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) based on a silicon wafer for possible application in a SF6 gas sensor used in electric power systems is presented. The sensor design is based on cross correlation spectroscopy principle with an FPI, which acts an optical modulator. Hence, due to characteristics of the FPI transmission spectrum, it can be used detect molecules with very well defined ro-vibrational lines such as those produced by diatomic and linear molecules. The design of the FPI depends mainly of the SF6 absorption wavelength peaks and of the optimum thickness of the silicon wafer. For this reason, in order to measure this absorption peaks a HITRAN database was used. The optimum thickness of the silicon wafer was calculated and simulated transmission spectrum. Finally, we demonstrated by using analytical simulations that a silicon wafer can be implemented as a FPI and used in a SF6 gas sensor.