Direction-independent fiber inclinometer based on simplified hollow core photonic crystal fiber

Orientation-dependent fiber-optic inclinometer based on core-offset michelson interferometer

An in-fiber Michelson interferometer (MI)-based inclinometer, which consists of misalignment-spliced fiber with end coating, is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The incident light divided at the misalignment-spliced joint is reflected at the end coating, and then re-coupled into the fiber core. Due to the phase difference between the core mode and the \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$m{\text{th}}$$\end{document}mth cladding mode, a typical MI is formed. The fiber near the misalignment-spliced joint is inserted in two capillary quartz tubes. The tilt of the capillary quartz tube leads to a significant deformation and curvature of the misalignment-spliced joint, which causes the wavelength and intensity of the MI spectrum to change. The experimental results indicate a good response within the angle range of 0°–50°. Both the wavelength modulation and intensity modulation are realized, with sensitivities of 0.55 nm/deg and 0.17 dB/deg, respectively. Moreover, the sensor shows a strong orientation dependence due to the asymmetric structure in the misalignment-spliced joint.

Experimental and numerical investigation on hollow core photonic crystal fiber based bending sensor

Recent progress in designing optimized microstructured optical fiber spreads an application scenario of optical fiber sensing. Here, we investigate the bending measurement based on a specially designed hollow core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF). Numerical simulation indicates that the bending sensitivity is mainly determined by the diameter of the hollow core and also depends on the coupled modes. Experimentally, a direction-independent bending sensor is fabricated by sandwiching a segment of specially designed HC-PCF into two segments of single mode fibers. The bending sensitivity of our device is improved 10 times by increasing the diameter of the hollow core. Bending measurement is validated at two orthogonal planes. The maximum sensitivity up to 2.8 nm/deg is obtained at 14° bending angle. Additionally, a low thermal sensitivity of 2.5 pm/°C is observed from 18°C to 1000°C. The sensor is robust, easy to fabricate and cost effective, which is promising in the field of small-angle bending measurement under a large temperature range.

Multiple hollow-core anti-resonant fiber as a supermodal fiber interferometer

Hollow-core anti-resonant fiber technology has made a rapid progress in low loss broadband transmission, enabled by its much reduced light-material overlap. This unique characteristic has driven emerging of new applications spanning from extreme wavelength generation to beam delivery. The successful demonstrations appear to suggest progression of the technology toward device level development and all-fiberized systems. We investigate this opportunity and report an in-fiber interferometer built in a dual hollow-core anti-resonant fiber. By placing multiple air cores in a single fiber, coherently interacting transverse modes are excited, which becomes a basis of an interferometer. We use this hollow core based inherent supermodal interaction to demonstrate highly sensitive in-fiber interferometer. Unique combination of the air guidance and the supermodal interaction offers robust, simple yet highly sensitive interferometer with suppressed temperature cross-talk that has been an enduring problem in fiber strain sensing applications. The in-fiber interferometer is further investigated as a sensing element for pressure measurement based on an interferometric phase change upon external strain. The interferometer features 39.3 nm/MPa of ultrahigh sensitivity with 0.14 KPa/°C of negligible gas pressure temperature crosstalk. The performance, which is much improved from prior fiber sensors, testifies advances of hollow core fiber technology toward a device level.

A Simplified Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber SERS Probe with a Fully Filled Photoreduction Silver Nanoprism

In this paper, a simplified hollow-core photonic crystal fiber surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) probe is presented. Silver nanoprisms are grown with a photoreduction method and account for the SERS, which have better electromagnetic enhancement than spherical silver nanoparticles at 785 nm. Due to the antiresonant reflecting guidance mechanism, the excited laser and SERS signal are effectively guided in such a fully filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber SERS probe and complicated selective filling with target sample is avoided. Rhodamine 6G molecules are used as probe molecules and the simplified hollow-core photonic crystal fiber SERS probe is test. Detection of low concentration Rhodamine 6G down to 10⁻⁸ M is achieved with a short integration time of 300 ms.

Transition of Fabry-Perot and antiresonant mechanisms via a SMF-capillary-SMF structure

In this Letter, we investigate the transition of the well-known Fabry-Perot (FP) and antiresonant (AR) mechanisms via a single-mode fiber (SMF)-capillary-SMF structure. The critical length for this transition is analytically found as a linear relation with the capillary inner diameter based on the ray optic method, which shows the agreement with both numerical simulations and experiments. Evolutions of the transmission and reflection spectra verify that FP and AR mechanisms are closely related to the critical length. An observed AR envelope modulated by the FP mechanism in the reflection strengthens gradually with the increase of the capillary length, which is expected to be a novel method for potential applications in multi-parameters sensing because of its combined mechanisms. The transition and critical lengths can be also found and explained using the same method in other types of AR fibers or waveguides with a hollow core.

Probing changes in tilt angle with 20 nanoradian resolution using an extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer-based optical fiber inclinometer

In this paper, we introduce and demonstrate a novel optical fiber extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer (EFPI) for tilt measurements with 20 nrad resolution. Compared with in-line optical fiber inclinometers, an extrinsic sensing structure is used in the inclinometer reported herein. Our design greatly improves on the tilt angle resolution, the temperature stability, and the mechanical robustness of inclinometers with advanced designs. An EFPI cavity, which is formed between endfaces of a suspended rectangular mass block and a fixed optical fiber, is packaged inside a rectangular container box with an oscillation dampening mechanism. Importantly, the two reflectors of the EFPI sensor remain parallel while the cavity length of the EFPI sensor meters a change in tilt. According to the Fabry-Perot principle, the change in the cavity length can be determined, and the tilt angle of the inclinometer can be calculated. The sensor design and the measurement principle are discussed. An experiment based on measuring the tilt angle of a simply-supported 70-cm beam induced by a small load is presented to verify the resolution of our prototype inclinometer. The experimental results demonstrate significantly higher resolution (ca. 20 nrad) compared to commercial devices. The temperature cross-talk of the inclinometer was also investigated in a separate experiment and found to be 0.0041 μrad /°C. Our inclinometer was also employed for monitoring the daily periodic variations in the tilt angle of a windowsill in a cement building caused by local temperature changes during a five-day period. The multi-day study demonstrated excellent stability and practicability for the novel device. The significant inclinometer improvements in differential tilt angle resolution, temperature compensation, and mechanical robustness also provide unique opportunities for investigating spatial-temporal modulations of gravitational fields.

Antiresonant reflecting guidance mechanism in hollow-core fiber for gas pressure sensing

A gas pressure sensor based on an antiresonant reflecting guidance mechanism in a hollow-core fiber (HCF) with an open microchannel is experimentally demonstrated for gas pressure sensing. The microchannel was created on the ring cladding of the HCF by femtosecond laser drilling to provide an air-core pressure equivalent to the external environment. The HCF cladding functions as an antiresonant reflecting waveguide, which induces sharp periodic lossy dips in the transmission spectrum. The proposed sensor exhibits a high pressure sensitivity of 3.592 nm/MPa and a low temperature cross-sensitivity of 7.5 kPa/°C. Theoretical analysis indicates that the observed high gas pressure sensitivity originates from the pressure induced refractive index change of the air in the hollow-core. The good operation durability and fabrication simplicity make the device an attractive candidate for reliable and highly sensitive gas pressure measurement in harsh environments.

Asymmetrical dual tapered fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer for fiber-optic directional tilt sensor

This work proposes a novel, highly sensitive and directional fiber tilt sensor that is based on an asymmetrical dual tapered fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (ADTFMZI). The fiber-optic tilt sensor consists of two abrupt tapers with different tapered waists into which are incorporated a set of iron spheres to generate an asymmetrical strain in the ADTFMZI that is correlated with the tilt angle and the direction of inclination. Owing to the asymmetrical structure of the dual tapers, the proposed sensor can detect the non-horizontal/horizontal state of a structure and whether the test structure is tilted to clockwise or counterclockwise by measuring the spectral responses. Experimental results show that the spectral wavelengths are blue-shifted and red-shifted when the sensor tilts to clockwise (-θ) and counterclockwise ( + θ), respectively. Tilt angle sensitivities of about 335 pm/deg. and 125 pm/deg. are achieved in the -θ and + θ directions, respectively, when the proposed sensing scheme is utilized.

Anti-resonant reflecting guidance in alcohol-filled hollow core photonic crystal fiber for sensing applications

Mechanism and sensing applications of antiresonant reflecting guidance in an alcohol-filled simplified hollow-core (SHC) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) are demonstrated. By filling one air hole in the air cladding of the PCF with alcohol, anti-resonant reflecting guidance of light can be achieved and energy leakage of the core modes can be induced at resonant wavelengths of the Fabry-Pérot (F-P) resonator formed by the alcohol-filled layer combined with the silica cladding in the cross-section of the PCF. The proposed structure exhibits periodic lossy dips in the transmission spectrum, of which the visibilities are sensitive to the refractive index of surrounding medium due to the reflectivity variation of the F-P resonator. Water level sensing is experimentally realized with this principle and the lossy dip exhibits a linear decrease against water level with a sensitivity of 1.1 dB/mm. The sensor is also sensitive to environmental temperature and a temperature sensitivity of -0.48 nm/°C is obtained between room temperature and 60 °C.

Orientation-dependant inclinometer based on intermodal coupling of two-LP-modes in a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber

A reflective optic-fiber orientation-dependant inclinometer, in which a short piece of polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF) is spliced with a lead-in single mode fiber (SMF) without any offset, is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The hollow holes within the PM-PCF are partly collapsed due to the directional arc-heating splicing and couple two linearly polarized (LP) modes into the downstream PM-PCF. Then two LP-modes are reflected at the end face of PM-PCF and recoupled back into the lead-in SMF again via the collapsed splicing cross section. A well-defined interference pattern is obtained as the result of polarized modes interference. Both orientation and sensitivity of bending is determined unambiguously with this compact PM-PCF configuration.