Air backed mandrel type fiber optic hydrophone with low noise floor

Low noise fiber optic hydrophone based on optical fiber coil wound on air-backed mandrel was developed. The sensor can be effectively used for underwater acoustic sensing. The design and characterization of the hydrophone is illustrated in this paper. A fiber Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) was developed and coupled with a Distributed Feedback (DFB) fiber laser source and an optical phase demodulation system, with an active modulation in one of the arms. The sensor head design was optimized to achieve noise spectral density <10 μrad/√Hz, for yielding sufficient sensitivity to sense acoustic pressure close to Deep Sea Sate Zero (DSS0).