Performance of magneto-optical glass in optical current transducer application

First, a theoretical analysis was performed on the effect of temperature on the performance of the sensing element of paramagnetic rare earth-doped magneto-optical glass material that can be used in an optical current transducer application. The effect comprises two aspects: the linear birefringence and the Verdet constant. On this basis, rare earth-doped glass temperature characteristics were studied, and the experimental results indicated that the linear birefringence of rare earth-doped glass increased with increasing temperature, while its magneto-optical sensitivity decreased. Comparative experiments performed for various concentrations of rare earth dopant in the glass revealed that changes in the dopant concentration had no significant effect on the performance or magneto-optical glass. At last, a comparison between rare earth-doped magneto-optical and diamagnetic dense flint glass showed that the sensitivity of the former was six times that of the latter, although the temperature stability of the former was poorer. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.