With the rise of modern infrastructure and systems, testing and evaluation of specific components such as structural health monitoring is becoming increasingly important. Fiber optic sensors are ideal for testing and evaluating these systems due many advantages such as their lightweight, compact, and dielectric nature. This thesis presents a novel method for detecting electric fields in harsh environments with slab coupled optical sensors (SCOS) as well as a novel method for detecting strain gradients on a Hopkinson bar specimen using fiber Bragg gratings (FBG). Fiber optic electric field sensors are ideal for characterizing the electric field in many different systems. Unfortunately many of these systems such as railguns or plasma discharge systems produce one or more noise types such as vibrational noise that contribute to a harsh environment on the fiber optic sensor. When fiber optic sensors are placed in a harsh environment, multiple noise types can overwhelm the measurement from the fiber optic sensor. To make the fiber optic sensor suitable for a harsh environment it must be able to overcome all these noise types simultaneously to operate in a harsh environment rather than just overcome a single noise type. This work shows how to eliminate three different noise types in a fiber optic sensor induced by a harsh environment simultaneously. Specifically, non-localized vibration induced interferometric noise is up converted to higher frequency bands by single tone phase modulation. Then localized vibrational noise, and radio frequency (RF) noise are all eliminated using a push-pull SCOS configuration to allow for an optical measurement of an electric field in a harsh environment. The development and validation of a high-speed, full-spectrum measurement technique is described for fiber Bragg grating sensors in this work. A fiber Bragg grating is surface mounted to a split Hopkinson tensile bar specimen to induce high strain rates. The high strain gradients and large strains which indicate material failure are analyzed under high strain rates up to 500 s-1. The fiber Bragg grating is interrogated using a high-speed full-spectrum solid state interrogator with a repetition rate of 100 kHz. The captured deformed spectra are analyzed for strain gradients using a default interior point algorithm in combination with the modified transfer matrix approach. This work shows that by using high-speed full-spectrum interrogation of a fiber Bragg grating and the modified transfer matrix method, highly localized strain gradients and discontinuities can be measured without a direct line of sight.

This thesis presents the fabrication of a low loss hybrid waveguide electric field(E-field) sensor based on optical D-fiber. This novel E-field sensor is formed as part of a contiguous fiber resulting in a flexible and small cross-section device that can be embedded into electronic circuitry. The in-fiber nature of this sensor also eliminates the need for alignment and packaging that conventional sensors need. An optical fiber can detect electric fields when the core of the fiber is partially removed and replaced with an electro-optic polymer. This polymer causes a change in the index of refraction in the waveguide of the device when in the presence of an electric field. The change in the effective index of refraction changes the speed of the light in the vertical axis relative to the light in the horizontal axis creating a phase change between the two axes. This phase change can be detected as a change in the polarity of the light coming out of the fiber. The sensor is formed by partially etching out the core of a D-shaped optical fiber and depositing a polymer to form a hybrid waveguide. The polymer becomes sensitive to electric fields through corona poling. The typical corona poling process is not amenable to poling a polymer located in the fiber core. A method of poling conducive to an in-fiber device was developed and demonstrated. Using PMMA and DR1 for proof of concept, the operation of the first in-fiber hybrid waveguide electric field sensor is demonstrated. Etch depth, polymer composition, and polymer spin rate are optimized to provide strong interaction between the light and the sensing portion of the hybrid waveguide while maintaining low optical loss. High frequency testing was demonstrated to show that the effect is electro-optic. AC testing also allows the Epi of the sensors to be determined at lower electric fields than are required for DC testing, eliminating charge build up and electric field break down issues.

Quantum sensing, a protocol that takes advantage of the extreme sensitivity of quantum systems to their environment, enables many applications of quantum systems for sensing. Inspired by direct electric field sensing using the Stark effect of a nitrogen-vacancy(NV) center, this work implements an NV-magnet hybrid way to explore the possibilities of overcoming NV’s relatively weak coupling strength to electric fields. The magnetic-noise-induced population relaxation of the NV center serves as the mechanism for sensing. Within this scheme, the magnetic noise spectrum is tuned by modulating the magnetic properties via voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) or electric-field-induced magnetoelastic effect. In this way, the noise carrying the information of the electric field is taken as a signal - the shift of the noise spectrum leads to a population difference of NV energy levels, which is used for evaluating electric fields. The investigation of the relation between sensitivities and operation points reveals that lower operation frequency is desirable for better performance. The comparison between VCMA and electric-field-induced magnetoelastic effect indicates that the efficiency of converting electric field into magnetic property modulation is a critical parameter for sensitivity enhancement.

This dissertation presents the novel creation of a hybrid D-fiber electro-optic polymer electric field sensor. The sensor is made by removing a portion of the cladding from a D-shaped optical fiber, thus exposing the core to interaction with external stimulus. Then, an electro-optic polymer is deposited, partially replacing the core of the fiber. Next, the polymer is poled to endow it with electro-optic properties. This sensor is packaged in order to restore its mechanical strength. Because D-fiber is not intrinsically compatible with standard optical equipment it is fusion spliced to standard polarization maintaining fiber. Finally the sensor is tested for electro-optic sensitivity. The hybrid D-fiber electric field sensors designed and fabricated in this work meet the requirements of mechanical strength, temporal stability, minimal perturbation of the electric field by the sensor, and a small and flexible cross-sectional area so that it can be embedded into the device under test. A fully packaged hybrid electro-optic polymer D-fiber electric field sensor which is capable of detecting electric fields of 50 V/m at a frequency of 6 GHz is produced. The sensor's electro-optic response is shown to be temporally stable. Additionally, the sensor is physically robust, and physically and electrically non-intrusive. This work also adds a thorough understanding of the design and fabrication of D-fiber waveguides with a polymer material deposited in the core. Several new fabrication techniques are developed and presented. A path to greater electric field sensitivity is outlined for future research.