Real-time fiber-optic anemometer based on a laser-heated few-layer graphene in an aligned graded-index fiber.

A real-time all-fiber anemometer based on laser-heated few-layer graphene in aligned graded-index fibers has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The proposed fiber-optic anemometer was composed of a pair of all-fiber collimators by using aligned graded-index fibers that was coated with the few-layer graphene. The few-layer graphene was heated through a heating light from a 532-nm laser, which changed the optical transmittance of signal light with the wavelength of 1550 nm. The wind speed can be measured through the transmission power of the signal light based on the wind cooling effects on the heated few-layer graphene, acting as a "hot-wire" anemometer. The experimental results show that the maximum sensitivity of the anemometer reaches -22.03  μW/(m/s), and a fast response time of as 0.064 s can be achieved. The proposed fiber sensor can be used for the real-time measurement of wind speed in the fields of environmental monitoring, oil exploration, oceanography research, etc.