Krzysztof Poturaj

Highly birefringent microstructured fibers with enhanced sensitivity to hydrostatic pressure

We designed, manufactured and characterized two birefringent microstructured fibers that feature a 5-fold increase in polarimetric sensitivity to hydrostatic pressure compared to the earlier reported values for microstructured fibers. We demonstrate a good agreement between the finite element simulations and the experimental values for the polarimetric sensitivity to pressure and to temperature. The sensitivity to hydrostatic pressure has a negative sign and exceeds -43 rad/MPa x m at 1.55 microm for both fibers. In combination with the very low sensitivity to temperature, this makes our fibers the candidates of choice for the development of microstructured fiber based hydrostatic pressure measurement systems.

Fiber Bragg Gratings in Germanium-Doped Highly Birefringent Microstructured Optical Fibers

We present a dedicated fiber Bragg grating (FBG) inscription experiment to investigate the compatibility of a microstructured optical fiber (MOF) with conventional FBG inscription setups. For the studied MOF, the angular orientation of the fiber in the interferometric excimer laser setup was found to have no significant influence on the final reflection of the inscribed FBGs. We also show that an array of multiplexed FBGs can be inscribed in a single MOF with a repeatability and quality that match fiber sensing requirements.

Control Over the Pressure Sensitivity of Bragg Grating-Based Sensors in Highly Birefringent Microstructured Optical Fibers

We present fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based hydrostatic pressure sensing with highly birefringent microstructured optical fibers. Since small deformations of the microstructure can have a large influence on the material birefringence and pressure sensitivity of the fiber, we have evaluated two microstructured fibers that were made from comparable fiber preforms, but fabricated using different temperature and pressure conditions. The magnitude and sign of the pressure sensitivity are found to be different for both fibers. We have simulated the corresponding change of the Bragg peak separation with finite-element models and experimentally verified our results. We achieve very high experimental sensitivities of -15 and 33 pm/MPa for both sensors. To our knowledge, these are the highest sensitivities ever reported for birefringent FBG-based hydrostatic pressure sensing.

Spectral-domain measurements of birefringence and sensing characteristics of a side-hole microstructured fiber

We experimentally characterized a birefringent side-hole microstructured fiber in the visible wavelength region. The spectral dependence of the group and phase modal birefringence was measured using the methods of spectral interferometry. The phase modal birefringence of the investigated fiber increases with wavelength, but its positive sign is opposite to the sign of the group modal birefringence. We also measured the sensing characteristics of the fiber using a method of tandem spectral interferometry. Spectral interferograms corresponding to different values of a physical parameter were processed to retrieve the spectral phase functions and to determine the spectral dependence of polarimetric sensitivity to strain, temperature and hydrostatic pressure. A negative sign of the polarimetric sensitivity was deduced from the simulation results utilizing the known modal birefringence dispersion of the fiber. Our experimental results show that the investigated fiber has a very high polarimetric sensitivity to hydrostatic pressure, reaching −200 rad × MPa−1× m−1 at 750 nm.

Sensing characteristics of the rocking filters in microstructured fibers optimized for hydrostatic pressure measurements

We report on the sensing characteristics of rocking filters fabricated in two microstructured fibers with enhanced polarimetric sensitivity to hydrostatic pressure. The filter fabricated in the first fiber shows a very high sensitivity to pressure ranging from 16.2 to 43.4 nm/MPa, depending on the resonance order and features an extremely low cross-sensitivity between pressure and temperature 28 ÷ 89 × 10(3) K/MPa. The filter fabricated in the second fiber has an extreme sensitivity to pressure ranging from -72.6 to -177 nm/MPa, but a less favorable cross-sensitivity between pressure and temperature of 1.05 ÷ 3.50 × 10(3) K/MPa. These characteristics allow using the rocking filters for pressure measurements with mbar resolution.

Prototype of the side-hole HB optical fiber

A standard polarization maintaining optical fiber (SMPM- single mode polarization maintain) has either an elliptical core or/and an elliptical inner cladding (bow-tie, panda). These kind of fibers usually display low or modest sensitivity to pressure and high sensitivity to temperature. The side-hole optical fibers having two hollow spaces symmetrically placed on both sides of the core are characterized by much higher sensitivity to pressure. This paper presents results of investigations on sensitivity to pressure and on sensitivity to temperature, which can attain the values of 140 rad/MPa*m and 1 rad/K*m, respectively.

V type high birefringent PCF fiber for hydrostatic pressure sensing

The paper presents the way that colour can serve solving the problem of calibration points indexing in a camera geometrical calibration process. We propose a technique in which indexes of calibration points in a black-and-white chessboard are represented as sets of colour regions in the neighbourhood of calibration points. We provide some general rules for designing a colour calibration chessboard and provide a method of calibration image analysis. We show that this approach leads to obtaining better results than in the case of widely used methods employing information about already indexed points to compute indexes. We also report constraints concerning the technique. Nowadays we are witnessing an increasing need for camera geometrical calibration systems. They are vital for such applications as 3D modelling, 3D reconstruction, assembly control systems, etc. Wherever possible, calibration objects placed in the scene are used in a camera geometrical calibration process. This approach significantly increases accuracy of calibration results and makes the calibration data extraction process easier and universal. There are many geometrical camera calibration techniques for a known calibration scene [1]. A great number of them use as an input calibration points which are localised and indexed in the scene. In this paper we propose the technique of calibration points indexing which uses a colour chessboard. The presented technique was developed by solving problems we encountered during experiments with our earlier methods of camera calibration scene analysis [2]-[3]. In particular, the proposed technique increases the number of indexed points points in case of local lack of calibration points detection. At the beginning of the paper we present a way of designing a chessboard pattern. Then we describe a calibration point indexing method, and finally we show experimental results. A black-and-white chessboard is widely used in order to obtain sub-pixel accuracy of calibration points localisation [1]. Calibration points are defined as corners of chessboard squares. Assuming the availability of rough localisation of these points, the points can be indexed. Noting that differences in distances between neighbouring points in calibration scene images differ slightly, one of the local searching methods can be employed (e.g. [2]). Methods of this type search for a calibration point to be indexed, using a window of a certain size. The position of the window is determined by a vector representing the distance between two previously indexed points in the same row or column. However, experiments show that this approach has its disadvantages, as described below. * E-mail: A.Nowakowski@ire.pw.edu.pl Firstly, there is a danger of omitting some points during indexing in case of local lack of calibration points detection in a neighbourhood (e.g. caused by the presence of non-homogeneous light in the calibration scene). A particularly unfavourable situation is when the local lack of detection effects in the appearance of separated regions of detected calibration points. It is worth saying that such situations are likely to happen for calibration points situated near image borders. Such points are very important for the analysis of optical nonlinearities, and a lack of them can significantly influence the accuracy of distortion modelling. Secondly, such methods may give wrong results in the case of optical distortion with strong nonlinearities when getting information about the neighbouring index is not an easy task. Beside this, the methods are very sensitive to a single false localisation of a calibration point. Such a single false localisation can even result in false indexing of a big set of calibration points. To avoid the above-mentioned problems, we propose using a black-and-white chessboard which contains the coded index of a calibration point in the form of colour squares situated in the nearest neighbourhood of each point. The index of a certain calibration point is determined by colours of four nearest neighbouring squares (Fig.1). An order of squares in such foursome is important. Because the size of a colour square is determined only by the possibility of correct colour detection, the size of a colour square can be smaller than the size of a black or white square. The larger size of a black or white square is determined by the requirements of the exact localisation step which follows the indexing of calibration points [3]. In this step, edge information is extracted from a blackand-white chessboard. This edge information needs larger Artur Nowakowski, Wladyslaw Skarbek Institute of Radioelectronics, Warsaw University of Technology, Nowowiejska 15/19, 00-665 Warszawa, A.Nowakowski@ire.pw.edu.pl Received February 10, 2009; accepted March 27, 2009; published March 31, 2009 http://www.photonics.pl/PLP

Technology of suspended core microstructured optical fibers for evanesced wave and plasmon resonance optical fiber sensors

Paper presents technology and some characteristic of manufactured suspended core microstructured optical fibers with cores undoped and doped with germanium dioxide. Manufactured fiber is very useful for evanescent wave sensors. Additionally on internal layers of holes thin (thickness about 28nm) silver layers were deposited. Those optical fibers probably will be very useful for surface plasmon resonance sensors. We introduced 6nm thick silver layers into holes of ordinary photonic crystal fibers 1m long.

Fibre Bragg gratings written in highly birefringent microstructured fiber as very sensitive strain sensors

The possibility of manufacturing highly birefringent (HB) microstructured optical fibers (MOF) made these fiber types very attractive for use in sensing applications. In contrary to traditional optical fibre sensors, properly designed MOF based components do not need temperature compensation as their birefringence remains insensitive to temperature changes. Furthermore the polarimetric strain sensitivity can significantly increase (even two orders of magnitude according to our previously reported results) for higher order modes, as their mode maxima get closer to the holey region of the fiber, hence are subjected to higher strain distribution. In this paper we present the results of numerical modeling of the propagation conditions in the HB dual-mode MOF including effective refractive index, confinement losses and birefringence calculations. Furthermore we show and discuss the spectral characteristics of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) structures written in the dedicated fiber with two technologies (with a nanosecond and femtosecond UV laser sources). A comparison of the theoretical and experimental values of effective refractive index and birefringence of the fundamental and second order modes is also included. We show the preliminary results of the fabricated structures strain response measurements and discuss ideas of increasing the structures strain sensitivity.

Technology of high-birefringent photonic crystal fibers for sensing applications

Paper described fabrication methods of high birefringence index guided holey fibers made from silica and high silica glasses. Several kinds of high birefringence holey fibers are described in the point of view their fabrication technology and basic characterization. There are: triple defect fiber with shape induced birefringence, two kinds of fibers with filling factor asymmetry induced birefringence, fibers with filling factor asymmetry induced birefringence and germanium doped core designed for Bragg gratings writing, fiber with filling factor asymmetry induced birefringence and neodymium doped core designed for fiber amplifiers and lasers, dual core fiber with circular and weakly separated cores. Methods of manufacturing we used were: MCVD method for silica and high silica glass preparation as optical fiber preform manufacturing and OVD method for porous silica glass fabrication including additional processes as hydroxylation, impregnation with suitable salts solutions, thermal decomposition, dehydroxylation and sintering lead to silica, high silica and rare earth doped glass preparation in the form of elements for microstructured fiber preforms compose.