Advanced Fiber-Optic Acoustic Sensors

Acoustic sensing is nowadays a very demanding field which plays an important role in modern society, with applications spanning from structural health monitoring to medical imaging. Fiber-optics can bring many advantages to this field, and fiber-optic acoustic sensors show already performance levels capable of competing with the standard sensors based on piezoelectric transducers. This review presents the recent advances in the field of fiber-optic dynamic strain sensing, particularly for acoustic detection. Three dominant technologies are identified - fiber Bragg gratings, interferometric Mach-Zehnder, and Fabry-Perot configurations - and their recent developments are summarized.

Fiber Laser Sensor Based on a Phase-Shifted Chirped Grating for Acoustic Sensing of Partial Discharges

Acoustic emission monitoring is often used in the diagnosis of electrical and mechanical incipient faults in the high voltage apparatus. Partial discharges are a major source of insulation failure in electric power transformers, and the differentiation from other sources of acoustic emission is of the utmost importance. This paper reports the development of a new sensor concept - a fiber laser sensor based on a phase-shifted chirped fiber grating - for the acoustic emission detection of incipient faults in oil-filled power transformers. These sensors can be placed in the inner surface of the transformer tank wall, not affecting the insulation integrity of the structure and improving fault detection and location. The performance of the sensing head is characterized and compared for different surrounding media： air, water, and oil. The results obtained indicate the feasibility of this sensing approach for the industrial development of practical solutions.

Nonadiabatic Tapered Optical Fiber for Biosensor Applications

A brief review on biconical tapered fiber sensors for biosensing applications is presented. A variety of configurations and formats of this sensor have been devised for label free biosensing based on measuring small refractive index changes. The biconical nonadiabatic tapered optical fiber offers a number of favorable properties for optical sensing, which have been exploited in several biosensing applications, including cell, protein, and DNA sensors. The types of these sensors present a low-cost fiber biosensor featuring a miniature sensing probe, label-free direct detection, and high sensitivity.

Comnutational Models for New Fiber Ootic Tweezers

This paper discusses the calculation of the trapping forces in optical tweezers using a combination of the finite differences time domain （FDTD） method and the Lorentz force on electric dipoles. The results of 2D simulations of the trapping of a circular particle by a waveguide with a circular tip are presented and discussed.

Ammonia Sensing System Based on Wavelength Modulation Spectroscopy

A sensing system in the near infrared region has been developed for ammonia sensing based on the wavelength modulation spectroscopy （WMS） principle. The WMS is a rather sensitive technique for detecting atomic/molecular species, presenting the advantage that it can be used in the near-infrared region by using the optical telecommunications technology. In this technique, the laser wavelength and intensity were modulated by applying a sine wave signal through the injection current, which allowed the shift of the detection bandwidth to higher frequencies where laser intensity noise was typically lower. Two multi-pass cells based on free space light propagation with 160 cm and 16 cm of optical path length were used, allowing the redundancy operation and technology validation. This system used a diode laser with an emission wavelength at 1512.21nm, where NH3 has a strong absorption line. The control of the NH3 gas sensing system, as well as acquisition, processing and data presentation was performed.

Nanostrain Measurement Using Chirped Bragg Grating Fabry-Perot Interferometer

A simple nanostrain direct current （DC） measurement system based on a chirped Bragg grating Fabry-Perot （FP） structure is presented. The FP cavity, formed between the chirped fiber Bragg grating （CFBG） and the fiber end face, presents an aperiodic behavior due to the CFBG. A laser located in the fringe pattern slope is used to interrogate the sensing head. The optical power parameter is analyzed when strain is applied, for long and short period fringe pattern wavelengths, and sensitivities of-2.87 μW/με and-5.48μW/με are respectively obtained. This configuration presents a resolution of 70 ε.

Experimental and Theoretical Analysis of an Optical Current Sensor for High Power Systems

A magneto-optical sensor, using a dual quadrature polarimetfic processing scheme, was evaluated for current metering and protection applications in high voltage lines. Sensor calibration and resolution were obtained in different operational conditions using illumination in the 1550-nm band. Results obtained indicated the feasibility of interrogating such sensor via the optical ground wire （OPGW） link installed in standard high power grids. The polarimetric bulk optical current sensor also was theoretically studied, and the effects of different sources of error considering practical deployment were evaluated. In particular, the interference from external magnetic fields in a tree-phase system was analyzed.

Interferometer Based on a D-shape Chaotic Optical Fiber for Measurement of Multiparameters

An interferometer based on a D-shape chaotic optical tiber tor measurement ot multiparameters was proposed. The sensing structure relied on a D-shape fiber section spliced in between two singlemode fibers and interrogated in transmission. The optical spectrum was composed by multiple interference loss peaks, which were sensitive to the refractive index, temperature and strain-maximum sensitivities of 95.2 nm/RIU, 10.5 pm/℃ and -3.51 pm/με, respectively, could be achieved.

Strain Sensitivity Enhancement in Suspended Core Fiber Tapers

Suspended core fiber tapers with different cross sections （with diameters from 70μm to 120 μm） are produced by filament heating. Before obtaining the taper, the spectral behavior of the suspended core fiber is a multimode interference structure. When the taper is made, an intermodal interference between a few modes is observed. This effect is clearly visible for low taper core dimensions. Since the core and cladding do not collapse, two taper regions exist, one in the core and the other in the cladding. The cladding taper does not affect the light transmission, only the core is reduced to a microtaper. The spectral response of the microtaper based-suspended core fiber is similar to a beat of two interferometers. The strain is applied to the microtaper, and with the reduction in the transverse area, an increase in sensitivity is observed. When the taper is immersed in a liquid with a different index of refraction or subjected to temperature variations, no spectral change Occurs.

Scarcity events analysis in adequacy studies using CN2 rule mining

Dealing with scarcity events is nowadays gaining relevance in electricity market studies, as traditionally predictable generation and consumption patterns are fading. Policymakers and system planners use therefore adequacy studies to a) understand if the current market design will attract sufficient generation capacity to meet electricity demand in the future and b) to comprehend what drives system inadequacy or resource scarcity when future scenarios lack adequate capacity. This work addressed the latter and showcases a first in-its-kind rulebased methodology that filters scarcity events from a large set of electricity market simulations. In this proof-of-concept, a rule-mining algorithm is applied to outputs from ENTSO-E’s Pan-European electricity market model, which is run for 700 model scenarios, each covering 8760 time steps. The developed methodology shows how to unveil potential reasons behind scarcity events in an automated, interpretable, and scalable manner.

Temperature-Independent Torsion Sensor Based on ＂Figure-of-Eight＂ Fiber Loop Mirror

An interrogation sensor system combining the ＂figure-of-eight＂ fiber loop mirror using a single directional 3×3 fiber optic coupler was proposed. One fiber loop mirror was formed by inserting a length of high birefringent optical fiber at the input ports of the 3×3 coupler. Splicing the output ports of the 3×3 coupler between them created the other fiber loop mirror. The introduction of this second loop gave rise to two polarization states of light with the same frequency but different optical phase. The mechanical torsion sensing head was located at the second loop and was exhibited an average modulus torsion sensitivity of 7.9×10^-4 degree/dB. The performance of the sensor was not affected by environmental temperature variations. Keywords： Torsion sensor, fiber loop mirror, interferometer

Suspended-core Fibers for Sensing Applications

A brief review on suspended-core fibers for sensing applications is presented. A historical overview over the previous ten years about this special designed microstructure optical fiber is described. This fiber presents attractive optical properties for chemical/biological or gas measurement, but it can be further explored for alternative sensing solutions, namely, in-fiber interferometers based on the suspended-core or suspended-multi-core fiber, for physical parameter monitoring.

Fiber Cavity Ring-Down Using an Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer

This work presented a demonstration of the potential for a fiber based cavity ring-down （CRD） using an optical time-domain reflectometer （OTDR）. The OTDR was used to send the impulses down into about 20km of a standard single optical fiber, at the end of which the fiber cavity ring-down was placed. The OTDR measured no appreciable losses, so other CRDs multiplexed could be spliced in parallel along the same optical fiber. To demonstrate the behavior and sensitivity of the proposed configuration, a displacement sensor based on a fiber taper with a diameter of 50 μm was placed inside the fiber loop, and the induced losses were measured on the CRD signal -- a sensitivity of 11.8 ＋ 0.5 μs/mm was achieved. The dynamic range of the sensing head used in this configuration was about 2 mm. Finally, this work was also compared with different works published in the literature.