Optical voltage sensor based on a quartz resonator

An innovative optical instrument transformer for voltage and electric field measurements is proposed. Due to its frequency modulated signal transmission, this newly developed device avoids major drawbacks of formerly suggested optical voltage transformers, which were typically based on intensity modulated systems. The feasibility and the limits of the proposed sensor concept have been studied. The properties of the sensor key element, which is a voltage/frequency (u/f) converting quartz resonator, could be optimized by utilizing appropriate finite element computer modeling including nonlinear mechanical and piezoelectric effects, and by experiments. Several optical detection methods have been investigated to realize the required electrical isolation.