Hans Georg Limberger

Relative humidity sensor with optical fiber Bragg gratings

A novel concept for an intrinsic relative humidity (RH) sensor that uses polyimide-recoated fiber Bragg gratings is presented. Tests in a controlled environment indicate that the sensor has a linear, reversible, and accurate response behavior at 10-90% RH and at 13-60 degrees C. The RH and temperature sensitivities were measured as a function of coating thickness, and the thermal and hygroscopic expansion coefficients of the polyimide coating were determined.

Bragg grating fast tunable filter for wavelength division multiplexing

A Bragg grating fast tunable filter prototype working over a linear tuning range of 45 nm with a maximum tuning speed of 21 nm/ms has been realized. The tunable filter system is based on two piezoelectric stack actuators moving a mechanical device thus compressing an apodized fiber Bragg grating. The filter allows both traction and compression and can work in transmission and in reflection. It is designed to work with a channel spacing of 100 GHz according to the ITU specifications for wavelength division multiplexing systems.

COMPACTION- AND PHOTOELASTIC-INDUCED INDEX CHANGES IN FIBER BRAGG GRATINGS

The tension on the core of single‐mode fibers is strongly increased by the formation of a Bragg grating. This tension increase lowers the refractive index because of the photoelastic effect. On the other hand, the compaction of the core network results in an increased refractive index. The two contributions are evaluated from axial stress measurements, from the determined index modulation amplitude, and from the mean index change of the Bragg gratings. The total Bragg grating index modulation is smaller than the compaction‐induced index modulation by 30%–35% because of the photoelastic effect.

Tension increase correlated to refractive-index change in fibers containing UV-written Bragg gratings

A strong axial tension increase induced by UV laser radiation is observed in the cores of single-mode optical fibers containing Bragg gratings, independently of the initial core stress. The induced index modulation of the gratings is linearly correlated to stress changes with a slope of (0.8 +/- 0.2) x 10(-4) mm(2)/kg. The phenomenon can be explained by a structural change of the glass in the fiber core into a more compact configuration.

Embedded optical fiber Bragg grating sensor in a nonuniform strain field: measurements and simulations

This paper investigates the use of embedded optical fiber Bragg gratings to measure strain near a stress concentration within a solid structure. Due to the nature of a stress concentration (i.e., the strong nonuniformity of the strain field), the assumption that the grating spectrum in reflection remains a single peak with a constant bandwidth is not valid. Compact tension specimens including a controlled notch shape are fabricated, and optical fiber Bragg gratings with different gage lengths are embedded near the notch tip. The form of the spectra in transmission varies between gages that are at different distances from the notch tip under given loading conditions. This variation is shown to be due to the difference in the distribution of strain along the gage length. By using the strain field measured using electronic speckle pattern interferometry on the specimen surface and a discretized model of the grating, the spectra in transmission are then calculated analytically. For a known strain distribution, it is then shown that one can determine the magnitude of the applied force on the specimen. Thus, by considering the nonuniformity of the strain field, the optical fiber Bragg gage functions well as an embedded strain gage near the stress concentration.

Polarization microscopy by use of digital holography: application to optical- fiber birefringence measurements

We present a digital holographic microscope that permits one to image polarization state. This technique results from the coupling of digital holographic microscopy and polarization digital holography. The interference between two orthogonally polarized reference waves and the wave transmitted by a microscopic sample, magnified by a microscope objective, is recorded on a CCD camera. The off-axis geometry permits one to reconstruct separately from this single hologram two wavefronts that are used to image the object-wave Jones vector. We applied this technique to image the birefringence of a bent fiber. To evaluate the precision of the phase-difference measurement, the birefringence induced by internal stress in an optical fiber is measured and compared to the birefringence profile captured by a standard method, which had been developed to obtain high-resolution birefringence profiles of optical fibers.

Bragg grating characterization by optical low-coherence reflectometry

Optical low-coherence reflectometry is used for the first time to investigate distributed-feedback structures within a single-mode fiber. This nondestructive method allows the location, the length, and the coupling coefficient of the grating to be determined precisely.<<ETX>>

Efficient miniature fiber-optic tunable filter based on intracore Bragg grating and electrically resistive coating

An electrically tunable reflection filter based on a platinum-coated single-mode optical fiber that contains an intracore Bragg grating has been demonstrated. The device shows a dc tuning range of 2.15 nm with a corresponding electrical power of 0.54 W. Wavelength modulation (WM) has been observed at frequencies lower than 100 Hz. The wavelength shift depends linearly on the electrical input power. A maximum efficiency of 4.1 nm/W is obtained for dc tuning.

Tunable loss filter based on metal-coated long-period fiber grating

An all-fiber electrically tunable loss filter that is based on photoinduced long-period grating coated by Ti-Pt metal coating was developed and investigated. Maximum wavelength tuning of 11 nm with an applied power of 0.67 W was achieved for the HE17 cladding mode resonance peak.

Characterization of the response of fibre Bragg grating sensors subjected to a two-dimensional strain field

In this paper, the behaviour of fibre Bragg grating sensors subjected to transversal as well as axial strains is characterized, both in the case of low-birefringent and polarization-maintaining single-mode optical fibres. Two configurations are considered. Firstly, diametrical compression is studied and the results compared to those previously obtained in the literature. Secondly, the sensors are embedded in an epoxy specimen and their response monitored when the latter is subjected to biaxial loading. In both cases, the experimental results are compared to those obtained by means of finite-element simulations and an appropriate analytical description of the opto-mechanical response of polarization-maintaining fibres.