Sean Dormer Thomas

DFB fibre-laser sensor developments

Distributed feedback (DFB) fibre-laser sensors have been shown to exhibit many characteristics useful in a range of sensing applications. Uniquely, fibre laser sensors enable the wavelength division multiplexing of a number of devices while maintaining the individual sensor characteristics of extremely high strain sensitivity, high dynamic range and very wide measurement bandwidth in small diameter sensors. These factors have led us to investigate a range of applications including hydrophone arrays, accelerometer designs, embedded acoustic emission sensors and acoustic pickups for musical instruments. This paper provides an overview of the optimised DFB sensor performance, interrogation and sensor configurations along with results and a discussion of the future developments of this technology.