Ivan S. Shelemba

An interrogator for a fiber Bragg sensor array based on a tunable erbium fiber laser

An interrogator of Bragg sensors based on a narrow-band tunable erbium laser is developed. The laser characteristics enable one to interrogate up to 45 temperature sensors in a range of 100°C with an error of no greater than 1°C.

Modulation instability at propagation of narrowband 100-ns pulses in optical fibers of various types

The instability of the propagation of narrowband 100-ns laser pulses in the transparency window of a single-mode fiber in the presence of continuous broadband noise is demonstrated. The modulation instability developed due to the nonlinearity and anomalous dispersion leads to a rapid decay of the narrowband component after passing through the fiber. The modulation-instability threshold is shown to be sensitive to the noise level in a spectral interval of about 100 GHz near a central wavelength of about 1.55 μm and is inversely proportional to the fiber length (varied from 1.6 to 21.0 km in the experiments). The effect is completely eliminated owing to the application of a dispersion-shifted fiber with normal dispersion.

Comparison of temperature distribution measurement methods with the use of the Bragg gratingsand Raman scattering of light in optical fibers

Two types of fiber-optical measurement systems are compared: a line with a large number of point sensors based on fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) interrogated by a tunable continuous fiber laser and a distributed system based on optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR) of the Raman scattering of radiation of a pulsed fiber laser. Methods for increasing the measurement accuracy with the use of additional calibration of the Bragg wavelength shift over a fiber interferometer in the FBG system and spectral filtration of the Stokes and anti-Stokes components of the Raman scattering with the use of spectral-selective fiber couplers in the OTDR system are proposed and implemented. Physical effects on system parameters are analyzed, compared, and optimized for applications with monitoring of the temperature distribution in turbogenerators and oil wells.

Combined time-wavelength interrogation of fiber-Bragg gratings based on an optical time-domain reflectometry

A reflectometric method for the combined time-wavelength multiplexing of the fiber-Bragg-grating (FBG) signals is proposed. The method is based on the spectral filtering of the probe pulses generated by a fiber-optic reflectometer using a bandpass filter consisting of a fiber circulator and FBG. The interrogated Bragg gratings are recorded on a fiber line in groups with identical resonance wavelengths inside groups and different wavelengths from different groups. The separation of the signals of FBGs that have different resonance wavelengths is due to the tuning of the filter passband, and the separation of the signals of FBGs with identical wavelengths involves the time separation of the responses of the Bragg gratings to the probe pulse. The threshold sensitivity of the method in the measurement of the relative elongation of FBG is 0.5 × 10−4. The considerable practical prospects of the method are related to its simplicity, reliability, and the application of the conventional reflectometric equipment.

Experimental Method of Temperature and Strain Discrimination in Polymer Composite Material by Embedded Fiber-Optic Sensors Based on Femtosecond-Inscribed FBGs

Experimental method of temperature and strain discrimination with fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) sensors embedded in carbon fiber-reinforced plastic is proposed. The method is based on two-fiber technique, when two FBGs inscribed in different fibers with different sensitivities to strain and/or temperature are placed close to each other and act as a single sensing element. The nonlinear polynomial approximation of Bragg wavelength shift as a function of temperature and strain is presented for this method. The FBGs were inscribed with femtosecond laser by point-by-point inscription technique through polymer cladding of the fiber. The comparison of linear and nonlinear approximation accuracies for array of embedded sensors is performed. It is shown that the use of nonlinear approximation gives 1.5–2 times better accuracy. The obtained accuracies of temperature and strain measurements are 2.6–3.8°C and 50–83 μe in temperature and strain range of 30–120°C and 0–400 μe, respectively.

Comparison of Raman and Fiber Bragg Grating-Based Fiber Sensor Systems for Distributed Temperature Measurements

Two types of distributed fiber sensor systems for temperature measurements have been developed: the first one is multi-point Fiber Bragg Grating based system with interrogation by CW tunable laser and nonlinearity compensation by reference interferometer. The second device is Raman scattering system based on optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) with a pulsed laser providing spatial resolution of several meters and efficient spectral filtering of the Stokes and anti-Sokes signals by means of WDM couplers. Physical effects important for the systems operation are analyzed and their parameters are compared and optimized for applications in oil-gas industry and turbogenerator temperature monitoring.

Fiber-optic sensors based on Bragg gratings

The rapid development of fiber optics initiated by the increasing demand for the information content and information transmission rate resulted in the development of new technologies in other areas, primarily next-generation lasers and sensors. These achievements are based on the unique properties of optical fibers. These are small optical losses in the propagation of radiation in the fiber ( ~0.2 dB/km in the low-loss transmission window in the region of ~1.55 µ m), the effective heat withdrawal due to the fiber geometry, and low distortions of a light beam. As a result, a high-intensity light can propagate over large distances without decline in beam quality. Furthermore, an important characteristic of fibers is photosensitivity or the ability to locally change the refractive index by the action of UV radiation. This effect makes it possible to construct a light control device directly in the fiber core. The fiber Bragg grating (FBG), a periodic refractive index structure, is an example of such a device. In this study, the properties of FBG are considered as a one-dimensional photonic crystal (PC), and prospects for FBG application as elements of laser and sensor systems are evaluated. The FBG is a piece of a light guide, in the core of which the periodic structure of the refractive index is induced [1]. The FBG possesses the property of narrow-band reflection of radiation at the Bragg wavelength: