Thermal characterization of Bragg gratings in polarization-maintaining optical fibres: analysis of birefringence and regeneration

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of birefringence and regeneration of fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) in two types of polarization-maintaining (PM) optical fibres, bow tie and internal elliptical cladding (IEC), with different diameters. The thermal regeneration of FBGs in PM fibres with different degrees of saturation (weakly, slightly, and strongly saturated) is presented and the influence of the gratings’ saturation degree on the birefringence of PM fibres is shown. The birefringence values obtained for IEC fibres with 80 µm of diameter were for a strongly saturated seed grating of 5.3 × 10−4 and 6.2 × 10−4 refractive index units after the regeneration. The evolution of the fibre birefringence as a function of the temperature is presented and the results show hysteresis and nonlinear dependence of the birefringence on temperature. The thermal stability of regenerated gratings in PM fibres is demonstrated, and a sensitivity coefficient value of 0.0035 dBm min−1 at 900 °C was obtained. The results obtained show the feasibility of optimization of fibre birefringence; this could allow such fibers to be used as temperature sensors and even improve the birefringence after the grating regeneration.