Electro-Optic Sensors Dedicated to Non-Invasive Electric Field Characterization

This paper describes non-invasive electro-optic sensors devoted to simultaneous electric field and temperature measurements. Based on Pockel’s effect, these sensors consist in non-centrosymmetric crystals for which an electricfield induces a modification of their refractive indices [1]. Such modification can also be induced by a drift of the crystal temperature [2]. After explanation of the principle, we will illustrate some applications (high power microwave characterization, bioelectromagnetism, electric field mapping of high voltage devices) for which electro-optic sensors give excellent performances. These sensors perform vectorial E-field measurement (modulus and phase of each E-field components) with both high spatial and temporal resolutions. As they are pigtailed, long distance remote sensing is then allowed. They are also non-invasive due to their fully dielectric design. However, their sensitivity remains quite low for electromagnetic compatibility and their size remains too important for bioelectromagnetism studies in Petry dishes for example. So, two ways of improvement are pursued. The first one consists in using Fabry-Perot microcavities based on LiNbO3 optical waveguide to dramatically reduce sensors size. The second one consists in an optical processing (optical carrier rejection) of the laser probe beam to increase the sensor sensitivity for high frequency measurements. We will present first results concerning these improvements and also results that have been performed in free space with a fully automated setup in both frequency and time domains.