Frank W. Cuomo
Dept. of Phys., Univ. of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881
Trung D. Nguyen
Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, VA 23508
Allan J. Zuckerwar
NASA Langley Res. Ctr., Hampton, VA 23665
The fiber optic lever microphone [Hu et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 91, 3049--3056 (1992)], as described previously, contains a central transmitting fiber surrounded by six receiving fibers placed with the distal end in the vicinity of the reflecting microphone membrane. Recently, a new approach consisting of a single optical fiber connected to an optical fiber coupler has been implemented. This design provides increased optical throughput, ease of fabrication, improved stability with temperature cycling, and more repeatable sensitivity. The two embodiments will be compared with regard to their theoretical optical transfer functions and experimental performance with temperature cycling to 1000 (degrees)F.