Optical voltage sensors: principle, problem and research proposal

摘要

Sensing principles and main problems to be solved for optical voltage sensors are briefly reviewed. Optical effects used for voltage sensing usually include electrooptic Pockels and Kerr effects, electrogyration effect, elastooptical effect, and electroluminescent effects, etc. Typical optical voltage sensors are mainly based on electro-optic Pockels crystals and closed-loop signal detection scheme. Problems to be solved mainly include: how to keep the optical phase bias to be stable under temperature fluctuation and vibration; how to suppress or compensate the temperature drift of voltage sensing signal; how to compensate the light beam coupling-related loss in crystal-based voltage sensing unit; how to achieve dc voltage sensing, etc. hi order to avoid the influence of unwanted optical effects and light beam coupling-related loss on voltage sensing signals, we propose to do further research on all-fiber and waveguide voltage sensors. Voltage sensors based on electroluminescent effects are also promising in some application fields due to their compact configuration, low cost and potential long-term reliability.