Fabrication and sensing characteristics of arc-induced long-period fiber gratings based on thin-cladding fiber

Abstract

The fabrication of long period fiber gratings (LPFGs) based on thin-cladding fiber (TCF) has been demonstrated by adopting electric-arc discharge (EAD) technique. In order to analyze the sensing characteristics of arc-induced TCF LPFGs, the refractive index (RI), temperature and strain sensing characteristics were also experimentally investigated, respectively. Compared with conventional LPFGs, the excellent performance of the LPFGs based on TCF is that it has a higher RI sensitivity for the same order cladding mode due to the stronger evanescent field of thinner cladding. The proposed LPFGs based on this simple fabrication method have a narrow full width at half maximum (FWHM), which provides the possibility for using as filters or sensors in the applications of optical communications or fiber-optic sensing.

Keywords

• Long period fiber gratings
• Thin-cladding fiber
• Electric-arc discharge
• Optical fiber sensors