Single-crystal sapphire fiber-based strain sensor for high-temperature applications

Single-crystal sapphire fibers have a very high melting point (up to 2050/spl deg/C), which renders them a very good candidate for sensing applications at a very high temperature. We present in this paper the recent work of developing single-crystal sapphire fiber extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric strain sensors based on the white-light interferometric spectrum demodulation technique. Prototype sapphire strain sensors were fabricated and tested at high temperatures up to 1004/spl deg/C. The preliminary experimental results indicate that the sensors are promising to be used under high-temperature environments for making strain measurements with strain measurement resolution of 0.2-/spl mu/ strain.