In this paper, we propose techniques to design and fabricate polymer micro-cantilevers for attachment onto the end of standard single mode fibers using laser machining. The polymer cantilever is fabricated by laser micro-machining a sheet of polymer into the required shape and then bonded onto the top of a ceramic ferrule by photo resist as a flat supporting and bonding layer. The dimension of resulting cantilever is ~1.2 mm long, ~300 μm wide, and 25 μm thick. In this work we describe the fabrication of single sensors, however the process could be scaled to offer a route towards mass production. Cantilever vibration caused by vibration signal are monitored by a DFB laser based phase interrogation system. Proof-of-concept experiments show that the sensor is capable of detecting vibration signal with a frequency range of 0-800Hz. By using thinner polymer sheet and machining longer cantilever, the frequency response range can be extended up to a few kHz.

Date Published: 23 April 2017
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 10323, 25th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors, 103232X (23 April 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2263956

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10323:
25th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors
Youngjoo Chung; Wei Jin; Byoungho Lee; John Canning; Kentaro Nakamura; Libo Yuan, Editor(s)