Abstract
A fiberoptic sensor using a low-coherence SLD as a light source has been studied. The sensor system employing an intrinsic fiber Fabry-Peort interferometer as a sensing tip and a fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer as a processing one, overcomes the ambiguous reading caused by the highly periodic natrue of conventional high-precision interferometric sensors and provides unambiguous identification of the desired phase among several candidates on the transfer function of an interferometric signal. A tentative application to the temperature sensor shows the potential that the fiberoptic sensor has a side-dynamic range of $0-900^{\circ}C$ as well as reasonable resolution higher than $0.1^{\circ}C$ without ambiguity. Due to the inherent property of the optical fiber itself and the intrinsic fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer, the proposed fiberoptic sensor will give obvious benefits when it is applied to harsh environments to monitor some physical parameters such as temperature, strain, pressure and vibration.
