In situ strain sensing at high-temperature environment is crucial in the aerospace field. Silica fibers will soften at 700 ℃, which can hardly be utilized for strain sensing at higher temperatures. Notably, single crystal sapphire fiber is a promising material for high-temperature sensing due to the high melting point (~2045 ℃). Here, we report the strain sensing at 800 ℃ of sapphire fiber Bragg gratings (SFBG) inscribed by a femtosecond laser lineby- line scanning technique. At first, a line-by-line sapphire fiber grating was inscribed using femtosecond laser direct writing technique. The sapphire fiber ends were polished into bevels to reduce Fresnel reflections, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the SFBG was improved from 9 dB to 17.2 dB. And then, strain characteristics of the SFBG were investigated at room temperature. It was found that the maximum strain of SFBG was decreased to 3600 με (64% reduction) comparing with 9714 με of the pristine sapphire fiber, which is due to the micro-damage introduced by femtosecond laser pulses. In addition, the strain sensitivity of the SFBG is 1.42 pm/με. Subsequently, a strain sensing experiment of the SFBG was carried out at 1100 ℃ using a high-temperature tensile testing system. After annealing at 1100 ℃ for 4 h to improve the high-temperature stability, the SFBG exhibited a strain sensitivity of 1.6 pm/με (R2=0.998) at 1100 ℃. As a result, strain sensing at 1100 ℃ environment was realized based on the SFBG, which indicates a promising application in the aerospace field, especially in strain sensing for structural safety monitoring of hypersonic aircraft at high-temperature.
Vibration monitoring is crucial in many fields such as seismic detection, oil and gas exploration and structural health monitoring. Here, we present a novel directional accelerometer using a highly localized fiber Bragg grating (FBG) fabricated by a beam-shaping femtosecond (fs) laser point-by-point (PbP) technology. The FBG was inscribed with asymmetric refractive index modulations (RIMs) in the fiber core of a single-mode fiber (SMF), ensuring directional coupling of cladding mode resonances and thus providing a sensing mechanism for directional vibration response. A reflective accelerometer was achieved by sputtering a nano-gold reflector on the fiber end of the FBG. The acceleration sensitivity and directional dependence of the accelerometer were experimentally investigated, which exhibited an excellent directional vibration response with a maximum acceleration sensitivity of 0.113 V/g at high temperature of 450 ℃. Notably, the core mode resonance of the FBG can be used to calibrate the power fluctuations and cancel out the temperature crosstalk. The proposed directional accelerometer is compact, flexible, and high-temperature-resistant, which exhibits promising potential for structures vibration monitoring in harsh environments.
We propose and demonstrate a vector vibration sensor with high-temperature resistance, consisting of a ring cavity laser and fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) inscribed in seven-core fiber (SCF) by using femtosecond laser auto-positioning pointby- point technology. A vibration sensing probe is composed of three FBGs inscribed in the outer cores of SCF. Note that they have 120° angular separation in the SCF. Moreover, the FBG inscribed in the central core of SCF is employed as a narrow band reflector in the ring cavity laser, enabling the laser to achieve the ability of temperature and strain compensation. Such a proposed sensor can be used to measure vibration orientation and acceleration simultaneously. The sensing performance of this device was demonstrated and discussed. The results show that it has a working frequency bandwidth ranging from 4 to 68 Hz, a maximum sensitivity of 54.2 mV/g, and the azimuthal angle accuracy of 0.21°. Furthermore, we investigated the vibration responses at high temperature of this device, and the results demonstrate that the proposed vector vibration sensor can operate at 550 °C. Therefore, such a proposed vector vibration sensor can be applied in harsh environments, such as aerospace and nuclear reactor.
High-temperature sensing is in great demand in the aviation, nuclear power and petroleum industries. Single-crystal sapphire fiber is a promising candidate for the fabrication of ultra-high temperature sensor due to its high melting temperature of 2045 °C. However, sapphire fiber usually exhibits multimode operation owing to it having no cladding. We demonstrate a new method for fabricating single-mode helical Bragg grating waveguides (HBGWs) in a multimode sapphire fiber based on femtosecond laser direct writing technique. Such a helical Bragg waveguide can be obtained by using merely one fabrication step. The negative refractive index changes region works as a depressed cladding waveguide, and the periodical structure yields Bragg resonance. And hence, a single-mode HBGW created in sapphire fiber was successfully fabricated by using the proper parameters, such as a diameter of 10 μm and a single-pulse energy of 29.9 nJ, and the bandwidth of its reflection spectrum was merely 0.68 nm. Subsequently, the temperature response of the fabricated HBGW created in sapphire fiber was tested and it could withstand the high temperature of 1800 °C and its temperature sensitivity was 41.2 pm/°C.
Two types of FBG were fabricated in the 20/400μm passive Double-Clad Fiber (DCF) without coating (w/o-coating) and with coating (w-coating) by femtosecond laser plane-by-plane technology. The w/o-coating FBG with a central wavelength of 1060.62 nm, a reflectivity greater than 99.5% and a 3dB-bandwidth of 3.52 nm, the w-coating FBG with a central wavelength of 1080.10 nm, a reflectivity greater than 99.9% and a 3dB-bandwidth of 2.87 nm, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of fabricating high quality fiber Bragg grating in 20/400μm DCF using femtosecond laser direct writing method.
The measurement of ultra-high temperatures is crucial for making meaningful advancements in the aerospace and power industries. Single-crystal sapphire fibers are desirable for the fabrication of ultra-high temperature sensors due to its high melting temperature of 2045 °C. Sapphire fiber Bragg gratings (SFBGs) suffer from a significant deterioration in their spectra following an ultra-high temperature exposure due to high-temperature oxidation. Here, an ultra-high-temperature sensor based on SFBG created by femtosecond laser inscription and inert gas-sealed packaging is proposed and demonstrated. The SFBG high-temperature sensor consists of a sapphire tube infiltrated with argon gas and an SFBG inscribed with a femtosecond laser line-by-line technique. Moreover, a standard FC/APC connector was set up at the end of the sapphire tube. The ultra-high temperature sensor was isothermally annealed for 55 hours at 1600 °C. Furthermore, the long-term thermal stability and temperature response of the sensors was evaluated, and then Savitzky-Golay smoothing and interpolation of the reflection spectrum were utilized to increase the accuracy in detecting the peak wavelength. It has been found that the stabilized ultra-high-temperature sensor can withstand temperatures up to 1600 °C for up to 20 hours. Furthermore, a third-order polynomial fitted to the response was used for calibrating the sensor from room temperature to 1800 °C. Additionally, its temperature sensitivity at 1800°C was 41.9 pm/°C. These results make it eminently suitable for utilization for ultra-high temperature measurements in power, smelting, and aviation industries.
Highly birefringent fiber Bragg grating have been widely used for multi-parameter measurements such as torsion and strain. Here, we propose and demonstrate a novel highly birefringent cladding fiber Bragg grating (Hi-Bi CFBG) fabricated for simultaneous measurement of torsion and strain at high temperature. After optimization of fabrication parameters, the Hi-Bi CFBG with a high birefringence of 2.2 × 10-4 and a low reflection less than 1% was successfully fabricated in a conventional single-mode fiber by using a femtosecond laser direct writing technology. This Hi-Bi CFBG consists of sawtooth periodic refractive index modulation fabricated in the fiber cladding. The significant polarization splitting of the reflection peak of the Hi-Bi CFBG is 233 pm induced by strong birefringence. And then, a simultaneous measurement of torsion and strain at high temperature of 700 °C was carry out, and the results show that the fiber torsion angle and direction can be deduced by monitoring the variation of the reflection difference between the two polarizationpeaks and the fiber strain can be detected by monitoring the wavelength shift of one of the polarization-peaks. The Hi-Bi CFBG exhibited a high torsion sensitivity of up to 80.02 dB/(deg/mm) and a strain sensitivity of 1.06 pm/με at high temperature of 700 °C. As such, the proposed femtosecond-laser-inscribed Hi-Bi CFBG can be used as a mechanical sensor in many areas, especially in intelligent health monitoring at extreme environments
A method, i.e., vector projections, using two outer cores of multicore fiber without calibration and OFDR was proposed to realize three-dimensional (3D) shape sensing. Compared with traditional shape sensing method, the vector projections method based on two outer cores of multicore fiber, decreased the number of fiber cores, which eliminating the requirement for fiber cores arrangement. Experimental results show that the mean standard deviation (SD) of bending orientation is 2.84° and the mean SD of bending radius is 1.70 mm. This method offers the potentiality of dynamic shape sensing and provide reference for the researchers who focus on optical fiber secondary manufacture such as FBG arrays inscription to achieving shape sensing.
We propose and demonstrate a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) array inscribed with femtosecond laser point-by-point (PbP) method for quasi-distributed high-temperature sensing. Via optimization of grating length, femtosecond laser energy and grating pitch, a wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) FBG array including nine FBGs with various Bragg wavelengths ranging from 1510 nm to 1590 nm and an identical ultra-weak FBG array including 60 FBGs with a peak reflectivity of ~0.1‰ were fabricated. After annealing at 700°C for nearly 200 hours, the FBG exhibited a an extremely low Bragg wavelength shift (i.e., -2 pm/h). In addition, the modulation of WDM FBG array was studied. A generalized calibration curve was applied to the FBG array and the maximum fitting error of 27 pm and the temperature measurement accuracy of ± 1.8°C were achieved. And then, the fabricated WDM FBG array was used to realize the quasi-distributed high-temperature sensing up to 700°C in the static and dynamic environment. Such WDM FBG array could be developed for quasi-distributed high-temperature sensing in metallurgical, chemical, and aviation industries.
A new type of refractive index (RI) sensor based on a side-polished fiber Bragg grating (FBG) has been experimentally demonstrated. At first, a FBG was inscribed in a single mode fiber by means of 267 nm fs laser irradiation through a uniform phase mask, which has an excellent spectral shape with a transmission loss of −9 dB (i.e., a high reflectivity of 87.41%), a 3dB bandwidth of 0.78 nm. Then, the portion of the fiber cladding enclosing the FBG was side-polished into a D-shaped configuration, and the D-shaped FBG was employed as an RI sensor. The removal of the fiber cladding via side-polishing technique ensures that the propagating core-mode of the FBG can interact with the external medium, and hence the Bragg wavelength of the D-shaped FBG will be sensitive to the RI change of the external medium. A conventional unpolished FBG demonstrated a linear relationship between the Bragg wavelength and the surrounding RI with a low sensitivity of ~1.8 pm/RIU at an RI of 1.45. For comparison, the side-polished FBG exhibited a considerably increased RI sensitivity of up to ~10 nm/RIU at an RI of 1.45. Hence, it may be attractive for biochemical sensing applications.
Negative-index fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) were fabricated using 800 nm femtosecond laser overexposure and thermal regeneration. A positive-index type I-IR FBG was first inscribed in H2-free fiber with a uniform phase mask, and then a highly polarization dependent phase-shifted FBG (PSFBG) was created from the type I-IR FBG by overexposure. Subsequently, the PSFBG was annealed at 800 °C for 12 hours. A negative-index FBG was obtained with a reflectivity of 99.22%, an insertion loss of 0.08 dB, a blue-shift of 0.83 nm, and an operating temperature of up to 1000 °C.
KEYWORDS: Fiber Bragg gratings, Femtosecond phenomena, Reflectivity, Temperature metrology, Near infrared, Sensors, Ultraviolet radiation, Reflection, Oxygen, Chemical species
We reported a Bragg grating inscribed in gold-coated fiber (FBG) by NIR femtosecond laser (fs) for space application. Gold coating can shield the FBG from ultraviolet radiation and oxygen atom erosion. Cryogenic test, high temperature test, and gamma irradiation test were carried out. The reflectivity of the H2-free FBG remained stable at ± 120 °C for 100 h or with 50.4 krad γ irradiation, and the central wavelength shifted within 5 pm and 1.6 pm respectively. Regeneration of the fs-FBG was observed in case the FBG was annealed at 800 °C for 5 h, and the remained 5% in reflectivity after 19 h. Such fs-FBGs inscribed in gold-coated fiber could be employed as high performance fiber sensors for space application.
Fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) in gold-coated SMF have been successfully inscribed with NIR femtosecond laser and a phase mask for high temperature sensing application. The spectrums of FBGs inscribed by femtosecond laser are broader and asymmetrical with flat-toped profile which degrades the accuracy of FBGs interrogation with common peak detection techniques. A smart interrogation algorithm based on pattern matching (PMSIA) is reported in this paper. In this algorithm, an adjustable fitting spectrum template was proposed which enables the ability to suit for various spectrum patterns was proposed. The results of simulation and experiment demonstrate the noise immunity and threshold reliability of PMSIA. Less than 7pm interrogation error PMSIA was obtained even if the spectrum changes greatly in the very large sensing temperature range (up to 700°C).
We demonstrated an ultrasensitive temperature sensor based on a unique fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI). The FPI was created by means of splicing a mercury-filled silica tube with a single-mode fiber (SMF). The FPI had an air cavity, which was formed by the end face of the SMF and that of the mercury column. Experimental results showed that the FPI had an ultrahigh temperature-sensitivity of up to -41 nm/°C, which was about one order of magnitude higher than those of the reported FPI-based fiber tip sensors. Such a FPI temperature sensor is expected to have potential applications for highly-sensitive ambient temperature sensing.
We investigated experimentally liquid crystal (LC) filled photonic crystal fiber’s temperature responses at different temperature ranging from 30 to 80°C. Experimental evidences presented that the LC’s clearing point temperature was 58°C, which is consistent with the theoretical given value. The bandgap transmission was found to have opposite temperature responses lower and higher than the LC’s clearing point temperature owing to its phase transition property. A high bandgap tuning sensitivity of 105 nm/°C was achieved around LC’s clearing point temperature.
An improved arc discharge technique was demonstrated to inscribe high-quality LPFGs with a resonant attenuation of - 28 dB and an insertion loss of 0.2 dB by use of a commercial fusion splicer. Such a technique avoids the influence of the mass which is prerequisite for traditional technique. Moreover, no physical deformation was observed on the LPFG surface. Compared with more than 86 grating periods required by traditional arc discharge technique, only 27 grating periods were required to inscribe a compact LPFG by our improved arc discharge technique.
We demonstrated a high-sensitivity strain sensor based on an in-line Fabry-Perot interferometer with an air cavity whose was created by splicing together two sections of standard single mode fibers. The sensitivity of this strain sensor was enhanced to 6.02 pm/με by improving the cavity length of the Fabry-Perot interferometer by means of repeating arc discharges for reshaping the air cavity. Moreover, such a strain sensor has a very low temperature sensitivity of 1.06 pm/°C, which reduces the cross-sensitivity problem between tensile strain and temperature.
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