Optical Fibre Sensors 16

Abstract

We are very pleased to be able to edit this special issue of Measurement Science and Technology, which provides readers with an overview of recent progress and the current status in the field of optical fibre sensors. The 16th International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors (OFS-16) was held at the Nara-ken New Public Hall in Nara City, the ancient capital of Japan, from 14 to 17 October 2003.The first conference in this series was held in London in 1983, and a meeting has been held every one and a half years, covering the three geographic areas of America, Asia/Oceania and Europe/Africa. This conference was the third to be held in Japan.The conference provides a forum for the latest developments in optical fibre/guided-wave sensors, photonic sensing devices and related technologies. Also at OFS-16, many exciting papers were presented describing various kinds of fibre sensor technologies. The conference program consisted of a plenary talk, 23 invited presentations, 60 contributed oral presentations and 111 poster presentations. In addition, a special session was held on 'Sensing Technology for Smart Structures and Smart Materials'. This is one of the most promising fields in fibre sensing technology, and this session was planned to discuss the present status and identify issues to be resolved in the future.The 40 papers appearing in this issue contain detailed presentations of some of the articles presented at the conference, and reflect recent trends in optical fibre sensor technology and applications.About 40% of the papers are concerned with fibre Bragg grating technology itself or with its various applications, such as refractometry, thermometry, displacement, torsion, bending sensing and so forth. Of course, other original ideas have been proposed for applications that make clear how optical fibres are unique and powerful tools in sensing technology for various applications in many fields.We hope that this special issue helps to stimulate the field of optical fibre sensing, and would like to thank all the contributing authors and reviewers who have made this special issue possible. We would also like to thank Institute of Physics Publishing and their staff for all their hard work and support.