Abstract
We report the fabrication and initial characterization of a waveguide sensor array in the cladding of a flat fiber. The sensor, designed to independently measure the strain on three Bragg grating waveguides, exploits the true three dimensional fabrication technology of ultrafast laser inscription by placing these gratings in a non-planar configuration.
Highlights
Fiber Bragg gratings are among the most heavily utilized fiber sensing elements and have for many applications displaced their electrical counterpart, the strain gauge [1]
A fiber circulator was used to couple light from an erbium doped fiber amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source into the waveguide with the reflected light sent to an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA)
The significant difference in the gradient associated with the grating closest to the outside of the fiber is thought to be due to differential thermal expansion between the heavily Ge doped core of the ‘flat fiber’, this strains the cladding of the ‘flat fiber’ as it is heated resulting in a different temperature sensitivity for waveguides a different distance away from this core
Summary
Fiber Bragg gratings are among the most heavily utilized fiber sensing elements and have for many applications displaced their electrical counterpart, the strain gauge [1]. By modulation of the inscription laser during translation a longitudinal variation in the refractive index profile can be achieved, this can be used to create waveguide Bragg gratings [3] This technique has been extended to multiscan waveguides, waveguides with cross sections built up of multiple scans of the substrate through the laser focus [4]. In this paper we report the fabrication of three waveguides meeting in a 3x3 Y-splitter, fanning out to move the waveguides out of a plane before a straight parallel Bragg grating section to each waveguide This non-planar geometry should allow for differential strain measurement and direction and curvature of the device to be inferred.
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