Effect of macro-bending on resonant wavelength and intensity of long-period gratings in photonic crystal fiber

Orientation-Dependent Displacement Sensor Using an Inner Cladding Fiber Bragg Grating

An orientation-dependent displacement sensor based on grating inscription over a fiber core and inner cladding has been demonstrated. The device comprises a short piece of multi-cladding fiber sandwiched between two standard single-mode fibers (SMFs). The grating structure is fabricated by a femtosecond laser side-illumination technique. Two well-defined resonances are achieved by the downstream both core and cladding fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). The cladding resonance presents fiber bending dependence, together with a strong orientation dependence because of asymmetrical distribution of the “cladding” FBG along the fiber cross-section.

Ambient refractive index-independent bending vector sensor based on seven-core photonic crystal fiber using lateral offset splicing

A novel, simple, and compact optical fiber directional bending vector sensor based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The device consists of a piece of seven-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) sandwiched between two single mode fibers (SMFs) with a lateral offset splicing joint that covering two cores of PCF. Bending sensitivity of the seven-core PCF based MZI is changed by an axial rotation angle, which shows its capacity for recognizing positive and negative directions. Within a curvature range of -7.05 m-1 to 7.05 m-1, the calculated bending sensitivities of two resonant central wavelengths with opposite fiber orientations are 1.232 nm/m-1 and 1.174 nm/m-1, respectively. This novel MZI is formed by invoking interference between the LP01-like supermode and other higher order supermodes in the core, which leads to insensitive to ambient refractive index (ARI). We have also investigated the transmission characteristics of the sensor with the temperature change.

Long-period gratings inscribed in photonic crystal fiber by symmetric CO2 laser irradiation

Long-period gratings (LPGs) inscribed in endlessly single mode (ESM) photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) with symmetric and asymmetric CO2 laser irradiation are investigated both numerically and experimentally. Parallel results from conventional single mode fibers (SMFs) are presented for comparison. Theoretical predictions, transmission measurements, and near-field imaging indicate that, regardless of the fiber type, symmetric index perturbation induced by laser irradiation with the aid of a 120° gold-coated reflecting mirror results in LP(0n) symmetric mode coupling, while asymmetric irradiation without using the mirror leads to LP(1n) asymmetric mode coupling. Our results show that, because of the azimuthally anisotropic hexagonal cladding structure, symmetric irradiation yields far more reproducible LPGs in PCFs than asymmetric irradiation. On the other hand, the irradiation symmetry has little effect on the reproducibility of LPGs inscribed in SMFs due to the isotropy of its all-solid cladding structure.

CO2 laser writing of long-period fiber grating in photonic crystal fiber under tension

We demonstrate that the efficiency of CO(2) laser writing of long-period fiber gratings in a solid-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) can be enhanced greatly by applying tension to the fiber during the writing process through the mechanism of frozen-in viscoelasticity. Using this mechanism, we are able to write strong gratings in PCFs with a dosage of CO(2) laser radiation low enough not to cause any significant fiber structure deformation.