Study on hydrofluoric acid-based clad etching and chemical sensing characteristics of fiber Bragg gratings of different reflectivity fabricated under different UV exposure times

Abstract

An experimental study on hydrofluoric acid (HF)-based clad etching and chemical sensing characteristics of fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) of different reflectivity fabricated under different UV (255 nm) exposure times is presented. Two FBGs of reflectivity 11% and 93% were inscribed by phase mask–based exposition of the photosensitive fibers by a 5.5 kHz repetition rate of 255 nm UV pulses for 15 s and 10 min, respectively. These two FBGs, employed in an HF-based clad etching experiment, revealed a much higher etching rate of 2.03 μm/min for the grating of reflectivity 11% as compared to 1.69 μm/min for the grating of reflectivity 93%. The performance of these etched FBGs were also studied for refractive index sensing of the chemicals ethanol and ethylene glycol under different fiber etching times, hence of different residual cladding diameter. It was observed that the same refractive index sensitivity for both the chemicals could be achieved under smaller etching time, i.e., larger residual cladding diameter, for the FBG with lower reflectivity. This differentiating behavior of FBGs under etching and sensing may be linked to the different degree of densification in fused silica fiber cladding under different UV fluence exposures.