Experimental Study of Simultanoeus Transmission of a Light Wave and an Ultrasonic Wave in an Optical Fiber with the Use of a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

The possibility of acoustic wave propagation in optical
waveguides creates new prospects for the simultaneous use of a light wave and an
ultrasonic wave in, for instance, medicine for cutting biological tissues with a
surgical ultrasonic laser knife. A Mach-Zehnder optical waveguide interferometer
was used in the experimental studies of simultaneous transmission of those two
wave types. If ultrasonic vibrations are delivered to one of the interferometer
arms, a light modulation effect is produced. This paper presents measurement
results for different methods of delivering ultrasonic waves to the optical
fiber, i.e. using radial vibrations of a piezoelectric disk or longitudinal
vibrations generated by a sandwich ultrasonic transducer with a velocity
transformer.