Electromagnetic actuation shows promising suitability for constructing actuators and sensors with an optical fiber in terms of speeds, device dimensions, and power consumption. In this work we invented a fiber scanner which is composed of an optical fiber coated with nickel powder based ferromagnetic gel. The optical scanner, in which the optical fiber is mechanically steered with external electromagnetic fields, satisfies the applications that require small sizes, precise optics, low power consumption and prefers non-electrical control in the device. The device architecture makes the scanner dimensions in the same scales of an optical fiber diameter and the optics is well preserved in the fiber. In addition, the external actuation eliminates the needs of voltage or current in the scanner. Magnetization hysteresis curve of the nickel based ferromagnetic gel, which gives relevant magnetic material properties, is characterized in order to carry out the calculation of static and dynamic responses. A rotary gel coating technique is used to construct fiber optical scanners. The material preparation and fabrication method is described in this paper. We characterized the scanner in two modes. The static scanning results showed a 0.5 mm displacement under the influence of static magnetic field of 14.5 KA/m. At the first peak of resonant frequency in dynamic scanning, a linear displacement of 0.75 mm with a magnetic field amplitude of 6.69 KA/m was demonstrated. In this paper, we discussed the fabrication procedures and performance characterization of the fiber scanner as well as some of the potential applications.

Date Published: 18 January 2006
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6038, Photonics: Design, Technology, and Packaging II, 60381N (18 January 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.638172

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6038:
Photonics: Design, Technology, and Packaging II
Derek Abbott; Yuri S. Kivshar; Halina H. Rubinsztein-Dunlop; Shanhui Fan, Editor(s)