Zhihao Yu

Sapphire-fiber-based distributed high-temperature sensing system

We present, for the first time to our knowledge, a sapphire-fiber-based distributed high-temperature sensing system based on a Raman distributed sensing technique. High peak power laser pulses at 532 nm were coupled into the sapphire fiber to generate the Raman signal. The returned Raman Stokes and anti-Stokes signals were measured in the time domain to determine the temperature distribution along the fiber. The sensor was demonstrated from room temperature up to 1200°C in which the average standard deviation is about 3.7°C and a spatial resolution of about 14 cm was achieved.

Sourceless optical fiber high temperature sensor.

A sourceless sapphire fiber extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer for ultrahigh temperature sensing is developed. A sapphire wafer is mounted on the tip of a sapphire fiber as the Fabry-Perot cavity. The interference signal is generated by the thermal radiation that transmits through the wafer and is guided to a spectrometer by a sapphire and then a silica fiber. The entire sensor system is compact and low cost. The sensor was experimentally tested up to 1593°C, and a resolution around 1°C was achieved.

Modal reduction in single crystal sapphire optical fiber

Abstract. A type of single crystal sapphire optical fiber (SCSF) design is proposed to reduce the number of guided modes via a highly dispersive cladding with a periodic array of high- and low-index regions in the azimuthal direction. The structure retains a “core” region of pure single crystal (SC) sapphire in the center of the fiber and a “cladding” region of alternating layers of air and SC sapphire in the azimuthal direction that is uniform in the radial direction. The modal characteristics and confinement losses of the fundamental mode were analyzed via the finite element method by varying the effective core diameter and the dimensions of the “windmill”-shaped cladding. The simulation results showed that the number of guided modes was significantly reduced in the windmill fiber design, as the radial dimension of the air and SC sapphire cladding regions increase with corresponding decrease in the azimuthal dimension. It is anticipated that the windmill SCSF will readily improve the performance of current fiber optic sensors in the harsh environment and potentially enable those that were limited by the extremely large modal volume of unclad SCSF.

Design and analysis of large-core single-mode windmill single crystal sapphire optical fiber

Abstract. We present a large-core single-mode “windmill” single crystal sapphire optical fiber (SCSF) design, which exhibits single-mode operation by stripping off the higher-order modes (HOMs) while maintaining the fundamental mode. The “windmill” SCSF design was analyzed using the finite element analysis method, in which all the HOMs are leaky. The numerical simulation results show single-mode operation in the spectral range from 0.4 to 2  μm in the windmill SCSF, with an effective core diameter as large as 14  μm. Such fiber is expected to improve the performance of many of the current sapphire fiber optic sensor structures.

Attenuation measurements in single-crystal sapphire fiber via Raman scattering intensity

Performing attenuation measurements in unclad single crystal sapphire fiber has traditionally been accomplished through use the cutback method. Because single-crystal sapphire fibers do not cleave easily like silica fibers, this method requires repeated cutting and polishing of the sapphire fiber sample; which is very time consuming and introduces uncertainty in each loss measurement. In this paper, we present a new method to measure attenuation in sapphire or other single-crystal fibers based on distributed sapphire Raman optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR). This method is both nondestructive, significantly faster than the cutback method, and capable of measuring the local loss along the entire length of the fiber.

Simple interrogator for optical fiber-based white light Fabry–Perot interferometers

In this Letter, we present the design of a simple signal interrogator for optical fiber-based white light Fabry-Perot (F-P) interferometers. With the hardware being composed of only a flat fused silica wafer and a CCD camera, this interrogator translates the spectral interference into a spatial interference pattern, and then demodulates the F-P cavity length with the use of a relatively simple demodulation algorithm. The concept is demonstrated experimentally in a fiber optic sensor with a sapphire wafer as the F-P cavity.