Electro-optical measurements

(Kerr, Pockels, and Faraday)

Conventional means of measuring high voltages and currents rely on the measurement
consuming a (hopefully) small amount of the power from the system. For instance, a resistive
divider does draw some small amount of current. In power engineering, this small power is
called the "burden".

Instead of directly measuring the quantity of interest, you can measure the changes in properties
of some material as a result of the surrounding electrical or magnetic field. The power required
for making the measurement is provided by the measuring equipment itself. One family of these
techniques relies on the changes in optical properties of certain materials in electrical and
magnetic fields: the Kerr effect, the Pockels effect, and the Faraday effect.

All of these techniques rely on various mechanisms by which a material rotates the polarization
of light passing through. The amount of rotation depends on the electric or magnetic field. The
performace is determined largely by how well you can measure the change in polarization of the
light. High quality polarizing film has a transmission ratio of 1000:1 between aligned and
crossed.

If one wanted to measure the E field around an operating Tesla coil, as well as the waveforms,
the electro-optic sensorl could be mounted on a long insulated rod with fiber optic cables to send
the light to and from the measuring cell. An alternate scheme could be to use a laser and
appropriate prisms or mirrors to send the light out to the cell along the support and to return it to
a detector. In the latter case, the sensor itself could be mounted to the high voltage terminal, with
the laser and detector mounted at some distance away.

Kerr Cells

Often used to create extremely high speed shutters, the Kerr effect is an anisotropic change in the
index of refraction of a substance in response to an electric field. A practical implementation has
the Kerr substance (often nitrobenzene, which has a very high Kerr Constant) between two
crossed polarizers. The polarization of the light is rotated in proportion to the square of the E
field, allowing some light to pass through the polarizers. As a shutter, the response time of the
Kerr Cell is limited mainly by how fast the E field can be changed.

The problems with a Kerr Cell are: nitrobenzene is a volatile solvent which is remarkably toxic;
the effect is proportional to the square of the E-field, which is no problem for a shutter
application, but not as appropriate for a measurement application.

(more theoretical discussion of Kerr Effect)

Pockels Cells
The Pockels effect is similar to that of the Kerr effect, except that the change in index is linearly
proportional to the electric field. Substances such as KDP (Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate),
KD*P (Deuterated KDP) and LiNbO3 (Lithium Niobate) show large Pockels effects and are very
popular as electro-optic modulators for laser work.

One problem with Pockels sensors is the cost of the crystals, particularly in large sizes. A small 1
cm diameter crystal suitable for turning on and off a laser beam isn't particularly expensive
(several hundreds of dollars), but a larger one for use as a photographic shutter would be
prohibitively expensive. For a HV measuring application, the cell could be on the scale of
millimeters, particularly if fiberoptic cables are used.

(more theory)

Faraday Rotation

Faraday rotation is a magnetic effect. Notable in high density lead glass, the rotation is
proportional to the magnetic field. A chunk of lead glass 1" thick and 2" in diameter would need
a field of .5 Tesla (5000 Gauss) to rotate the polarization 90 degrees. (This is about 10,000
ampere turns for that physical size). The rotation is proportional to the length of the optical path
and to the magnetic field, so a longer piece of glass makes a more sensitive detector.

Faraday rotation does provide a handy way to measure the current in EHV or UHV power lines.
A piece of lead glass (which can be quite long) is placed near the power cable and a polarized
laser is used to measure the rotation. In a Tesla coil application, lead glass sensors connected by
fiber optic cables could be used to measure the current at various parts of the coil. For that
matter, a glass fiber of the appropriate material could be used as the sensor itself.

(more theory) 

There have been some Scientific American "Amateur Scientist" columns dealing with Kerr Cells
and Faraday modulators.

ElectroOptical Theory
Kerr

The Kerr effect results from the impressed electric field causes the assymetric molecules of the
liquid to align with the field. This causes the liquid to become anisotropic and birefringent. The
change in index is given by:

no-ne = K * E2 * lambda

where:
lambda is the wavelength of the light
E is the electric field strength
K is the Kerr constant

A Kerr Cell is a cell containing the liquid (typically Nitrobenzene) between two flat parallel
plates spaced several millimeters. A fairly high voltage (typically 10-20 kV) is placed on the
plates..

If the field is such that the cell retards the extraordinary ray by a half wavelength, the
polarization rotation will be 90 degrees. If a pair of polarizers is put around the cell, oriented at
45degrees, the assembly acts as a shutter. The voltage required to do this is called the
"halfwavelength voltage".

At the half wave voltage, the following is true.

(no-ne)*d = lambda / 2

where
d is length of cell
other variables as above.

Note that the wavelength cancels out when rearranging and substituting to give:

Ehalfwave = sqrt( 1/ (2 * d * K))

for calculating the halfwave E field

d = 1 / (2 * K * E^2)
for calculating required length of cell

Sample Kerr Constants

Nitrobenzene 2.4E-10 cm/V2

Glasses 3E-14 to 2E-23 cm/V2
Water 4.4E-12 cm/V2

 For Nitrobenzene (K=2.4E-10 cm/V2 ) and 30 kV/cm (breakdown of air), d = 2.3 cm

Pockels

(no-ne) = pE

where E is the applied field, and p is a proportionality constant:

 A similar calculation to that for Kerr cells can be made to determine the half wave voltage for
the cell.

KDP (Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate) 3.6E-11 meter/Volt

Deuterated KDP (KD*P) 8.0E-11 meter/Volt
Lithium Niobate (LiNbO3) 3.7E-10 meter/Volt
Faraday 

Rotation = VBl

where
Rotation in radians
V is Verdet Constant
B is the magnetic field strength
l is the length

Verdet Constant (if l in millimeters, B in Tesla)

fused quartz 0.004

dense flint glass 0.11
Benzene 0.0087

A peculiarity of Faraday rotation is that it rotates the same direction (e.g. Clockwise or
Counterclockwise) no matter which direction the light is travelling. This can be used to make a
one way light valve with two polarizers set at 45 degrees to each other.