An all-fiber setup to store and retrieve light pulses using electric control is presented. The experiment is based on a Sagnac interferometer with a phase modulator fabricated using a poled fiber with internal electrodes.

An all-fiber setup to store and retrieve light pulses using electric control is presented. The experiment is based on a Sagnac interferometer with a phase modulator fabricated using a poled fiber with internal electrodes.

We present the design and fabrication of flexible, liquid-filled scintillating fibers for X-ray detection made from silica fibers and silica capillaries. The scintillating fibers were characterized using ultraviolet light exposure and we also performed an experiment demonstrating X-ray detection.

Draw tower fabrication of a novel optical fibre with nanocomposite polymer coating is reported. Preliminary results show it is more robust to high-temperature ageing, and moisture-induced strain than standard polymer fibres when used for distributed sensing. 

A fiber optic health-monitoring system for refractory lining in steel-making processes is presented. Its applicability as an early-warning system for lining damage is demonstrated by the results obtained in a field trial, in which 240 m of fiber was embedded in the lining of an electric arc furnace. The system is based on Raman distributed sensing and polyimide coated fibers in metal tube. The results presented from temperature cycling and calibration at temperatures up to 600 °C show that adequate accuracy and stability for the application can be attained.

Ultrathin 25μm optical fibers with FBG sensors are manufactured and used as vibration sensors in glass-fiber reinforced composites. The use of ultrathin fibers is discussed, and their manufacture is described. © 2022 The Authors.

fs-point-by-point through the coating written FBGs as a basis for novel sensor concepts using 25μm optical fiber. fs-point-by-point FBGs in novel single mode fiber with a cladding diameter of 25μm have been produced in fiber that is 5 times smaller than conventional telecommunication optical fiber. The development opens the path to new sensor types including miniature pressure sensors with a diameter of only 330μm (1Fr.). © 2022 The Author(s).

Electrical corona discharge is employed in this work to deposit ions on the surface of an optical fiber, creating a strong electric field that is used for poling. Green laser light propagating in the core frees photocarriers that are displaced by the poling field. The technique presented can induce a higher optical nonlinearity than previously obtained in traditional optical poling with internal metal electrodes. To date, a maximum second order nonlinearity 0.13 pm/V has been achieved for a 15 kV corona discharge bias. 

The sensing properties of fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) inscribed in single mode fiber with a 5 μm diameter core and 25 μm diameter cladding are studied experimentally for temperature, strain, bending, and surrounding refractive index. Compared to normal single mode fiber, the diameter of this fiber is 5 times smaller and it stretches 14.5 times more at the same applied load. Therefore, it is much more flexible and stretchable, while maintaining excellent optical quality at wavelengths near 1550 nm. In addition to a core mode back reflection resonance, strong FBGs inscribed in this fiber show a relatively small number of narrow bandwidth (0.7 nm) cladding mode resonances separated in wavelength by 2.5–6 nm. This relatively coarse spectral comb can then be used to sense many different kinds of perturbations involving core and cladding modes. In particular, unlike cladding-mode based sensors made from tilted FBGs, all resonances are of the same azimuthal order as the core mode (i.e. HE1m). This feature makes these gratings particularly sensitive to bending which causes the appearance of new resonances and reduced amplitudes of the original ones, each by up to 10 dB/mm−1 of curvature. On the other hand, the temperature sensitivities of all modes are similar to that of standard fiber (around 11 pm/oC) while strain sensitivities are somewhat higher (1.6–1.7 pm/μstrain). The surrounding refractive index sensitivity is also increased (by a factor of 3) over normal fiber, mostly due to the increased modal dispersion of the modes of the thinner cladding. Furthermore, it is possible to serially multiplex different gratings at different wavelengths by interleaving their resonance combs and preserving each grating identity in the combined spectrum.