Intense Electric-Field Optical Sensor for Broad Temperature-Range Applications Based on a Piecewise Transfer Function

Intense transient electric-field measurements underlie much of the basic research in various fields of science and technology. In this paper, an optical sensor with a conjugate compensation configuration of a dual crystal is proposed that appears suitable over a broad range of temperatures. A test platform is constructed to obtain the temperature-dependent characteristics of the designed sensor, including the transfer function, the linear measurement range, and the frequency response. A piecewise transfer function corresponding to ambient temperatures is proposed enabling a maximum measurement error of less than 5% over a wide range of temperatures (-10 to 50 °C) for electric fields of frequencies ranging from 10 Hz to 1 MHz and intensities ranging from 1.2 to 155 kV/m. Applications using this sensor in measuring transient electric-field intensities confirmed that the sensor is expected to find widespread use in measurements of intense transient electric fields.