Quasi-interferometric scheme improved by fiber Bragg grating for detection of outer mechanical stress influence on distributed sensor being silica multimode optical fiber operating in a few-mode regime

Abstract

This work presents results of experimental approbation of modified fiber optic stress sensor based on a few-mode effects occurring during laser-excited optical signal propagation over silica multimode optical fiber (MMF). Modification is concerned with adding of quasi-interferometric scheme realized by two multimode Y-couplers with equalized arm lengths improved by fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and special offset launching conditions providing laser-based excitation of higher-order modes. We tested FBGs written on graded-index MMFs 50/125 with Bragg wavelength 1550 nm connected to different parts of proposed scheme. Researches are focused on comparing analysis of both spectral and pulse responses under changing of selected mode mixing and power diffusion processes due to stress local and distributed action to sensor fiber depending on scheme configuration. Here we considered FBGs not only as particular wavelength reflector during spectral response measurement but also as local periodic microstructure defect strongly effecting few-mode signal components mixing process that provides pulse response variation. Some results of spectral and pulse response measurements produced for different scheme configuration and their comparison analysis are represented.