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Suppression and Regulation of Thermal Birefringence in Optical Voltage Sensor with Isomerism Electrodes and Arbitrary Electric Field Direction Modulation

Jun Li, Qifeng Xu, Yifan Lin, Nan Xie

TL;DR

The study tackles thermal-stress-induced birefringence that limits optical voltage sensors' stability. It introduces a novel approach combining arbitrary electric field direction modulation (AEFDM) with isomerism electrodes, analyzed via multi-physics FEM, Jones matrices, and photoelastic theory. Experiments on a 10 mm cubic BGO crystal show that copper isomerism electrodes in the Cu 5:4 mode (field angle ≈ 59.9°) can reduce birefringence error by about 37% in the 25–40°C range, while ITO-based configurations worsen the error due to material limitations. This work provides a practical design method for robust, high-precision OVS and electro-optic modulators under arbitrary field distributions.

Abstract

The insufficient stability and reliability of Optical Voltage Sensor is primarily caused by thermal stress induced birefringence. In this paper, a method based on arbitrary electric field direction modulation and isomerism electrodes is proposed to suppress or regulate it. With the aid of multi-physics Finite Element Method, Jones Matrix and the theory of photoelastic effect, it is found that metal or transparent isomerism electrodes can generate a special thermal stress distribution, which regulates the birefringence in the optical path and their induced measurement error. The experiment is conducted on a 10mm cubic bismuth germanite crystal, with cutting directions 110, -110 and 001. The experiment result shows that Cu isomerism electrodes with electric field angle of 59.9 degrees could generate 37% less birefringence error compared to parallel plate electrodes, in the temperature range from 25 degrees Celsius to 40 degrees Celsius. However, the Indium Tin Oxide electrodes with field angle of 29.6 degrees produces approximately 7 times error because of its bad ductility and thermal conduction. The proposed modeling and suppression method for birefringence is beneficial to design of high accuracy optical voltage sensor or electro-optical modulator.

Suppression and Regulation of Thermal Birefringence in Optical Voltage Sensor with Isomerism Electrodes and Arbitrary Electric Field Direction Modulation

TL;DR

The study tackles thermal-stress-induced birefringence that limits optical voltage sensors' stability. It introduces a novel approach combining arbitrary electric field direction modulation (AEFDM) with isomerism electrodes, analyzed via multi-physics FEM, Jones matrices, and photoelastic theory. Experiments on a 10 mm cubic BGO crystal show that copper isomerism electrodes in the Cu 5:4 mode (field angle ≈ 59.9°) can reduce birefringence error by about 37% in the 25–40°C range, while ITO-based configurations worsen the error due to material limitations. This work provides a practical design method for robust, high-precision OVS and electro-optic modulators under arbitrary field distributions.

Abstract

The insufficient stability and reliability of Optical Voltage Sensor is primarily caused by thermal stress induced birefringence. In this paper, a method based on arbitrary electric field direction modulation and isomerism electrodes is proposed to suppress or regulate it. With the aid of multi-physics Finite Element Method, Jones Matrix and the theory of photoelastic effect, it is found that metal or transparent isomerism electrodes can generate a special thermal stress distribution, which regulates the birefringence in the optical path and their induced measurement error. The experiment is conducted on a 10mm cubic bismuth germanite crystal, with cutting directions 110, -110 and 001. The experiment result shows that Cu isomerism electrodes with electric field angle of 59.9 degrees could generate 37% less birefringence error compared to parallel plate electrodes, in the temperature range from 25 degrees Celsius to 40 degrees Celsius. However, the Indium Tin Oxide electrodes with field angle of 29.6 degrees produces approximately 7 times error because of its bad ductility and thermal conduction. The proposed modeling and suppression method for birefringence is beneficial to design of high accuracy optical voltage sensor or electro-optical modulator.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 10 sections, 25 equations, 10 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Analysis of error induced by thermal stress birefringence
  3. Simulation of thermal stress in OVS header
  4. Calculation methods of BGO's Birefringence
  5. Analysis of accumulation error along optical path
  6. Birefringence Regulation method based on AEFDM
  7. Experiment
  8. Conclusion
  9. Photo-elastic Matrix in Simulation Coordinate
  10. Method to Eliminate the influence of time on Drift Error in OVS

Figures (10)

  • Figure 1: FEM simulation model and results. (a) Simulated temperature distribution. (b) Simulated model's stress.
  • Figure 2: Stress distribution in BGO crystal along optical path. The top sub-graph shows the distribution of $\sigma_{11}$, $\sigma_{22}$ and $\sigma_{33}$ and $\sigma_{13}$. The bottom one shows that of $\sigma_{12}$, $\sigma_{23}$, which are much smaller than the other 4 components.
  • Figure 3: OVS's set-up for transverse modulation.
  • Figure 4: Schematic of 6 different modulation mode, named by the material of electrodes and the ratio of electrode sizes in x and y directions. (a) Cu 10:0, transverse modulation, (b) Cu 5:2, (c) Cu 5:4, (d) ITO 0:5, (e) ITO 0:7, and (f) ITO 0:10.
  • Figure 5: Von Miles stress in x-y cross-section for different modulation mode.(a) Cu 10:0, transverse modulation, (b) Cu 5:2, (c) Cu 5:4, (d) ITO 0:5, (e) ITO 0:7 and (f) ITO 0:10.
  • ...and 5 more figures