Spectral Beam Combining of Fiber Lasers by Using Reflecting Volume Bragg Gratings

By employing three reflecting volume Bragg gratings, a near-infrared 4-channel spectral-beam-combining system is demonstrated to present 720 W combined power with a combining efficiency of 94.7%. The combined laser beam is near-diffraction-limited with a beam factor M^2-1.54. During this 4-channel beam-combining process, no special active cooling measures are used to evaluate the volume Bragg gratings as combining elements are under the higher power laser operation. Thermal expansion and period distortion are verified in a 2 k W 2-channel beam-combining process, and the heat issue in the transmission case is found to be more remarkable than that in the diffraction e-se. Transmitted and diffracted beams experience wave-front aberrations with different degrees, thus leading to distinct beam deterioration.

Fiber Bragg Gratings in Small-Core Ge-Doped Photonic Crystal Fibers

This paper reports fiber Bragg gratings （FBGs） inscribed in a small-core Ge-doped photonic crystal fibers with a UV laser and a Talbot interferometer. The responses of such FBGs to temper- ature, strain, bending, and transverse-loading were systematically investigated. The Bragg wavelength of the FBGs shifts toward longer wavelengths with increasing temperature, tensile strain, and transverse-loading. The bending and transverse- loading properties of the FBGs are sensitive to the fiber orientations.

Two-dimensional non-spatial filtering based on holographic Bragg gratings

The filter made up of two gratings performs as a two-dimensional non-spatial filtering. This paper reports that the volume Bragg gratings are fabricated by interfering two collimated coherent laser beams in photopolymer. Diffraction efficiency of a single grating is up to 78% in Bragg＇s condition, then a two-dimensional non-spatial filter, which consists of two volume Bragg gratings and a half-wave plate, enables the laser beam filtered in two dimensions with the diffraction efficiency of 54%. The Bragg＇s condition and effect of polarisation on performances of the two-dimension filter are also discussed.

Characteristics of Bragg Gratings in All-Solid Photonic Bandgap Fiber

We report on fiber Bragg gratings in all-solid photonie bandgap fiber that was composed of a triangular array of high-index Ge-doped rods in pure silica background with fluorine-doped index-depressed layer surrounding the Ge-doped rod. Fiber Bragg gratings were photowritten with 193 nm ArF excimer laser and characterized for their response to strain, temperature, bending, and torsion. These gratings couple light from the forward core mode to not only backward core mode but also backward rod modes. This results in multiple resonance peaks in the reflection spectrum. All resonance wavelengths exhibited the same temperature and strain response with coefficient similar to that of Bragg gratings in standard single-mode fiber. The strength of the resonance peaks corresponding to the backward rod modes showed high sensitivity to bending and torsion.

Birefringent Bragg Gratings in Highly-Nonlinear Photonic Crystal Fiber

Efficient writing of Bragg gratings in 12-ring highly-nonlinear photonie crystal fibers is described. Experimental and numerical investigations are performed to reveal the optimum angle for coupling UV writing light to the core. Furthermore, we show that the formation of a strongly briefringent grating is at a particular angle of orientation.

Irradiation effect on strain sensitivity coefficient of strain sensing fiber Bragg gratings

The effect of irradiation on the strain sensitivity coefficient of strain sensing fiber Bragg gratings （FBGs） has been investigated through experiments. FBGs were fabricated in single mode fibers with 3 tool% Ge-concentration in the core and with a H2-1oading treatment. In experiments, the FBGs were subjected to y-radiation exposures using a Co6~ source at a dose-rate of 25 Gy/min up to a total dose of 10.5 kGy. The GeO defect in fiber absorbs photons to form a GeE＇ defect; the interaction with H2 is a probable reason for the y-radiation sensitivity of gratings written in hydrogen loaded fibres, The effect mechanism of radiation on the strain sensitivity coefficient is similar to that of radiation on the temperature sensitivity coefficient. Radiation affects the effective index neff, which results in the change of the thermo-optic coefficient and the strain-optic coefficient. Irradiation can change the strain sensitivity coefficient of FBGs by 1.48%-2.71%, as well as changing the Bragg wavelength shift （BWS） by 22 pm-25 pm under a total dose of 10.5 kGy. Our research demonstrates that the effect of irradiation on the strain sensitivity coefficient of FBG is small and that strain sensing FBGs can work well in the radiation environment.

Advances in femtosecond laser direct writing of fiber Bragg gratings in multicore fibers:technology,sensor and laser applications

In this article,we review recent advances in the technology of writing fiber Bragg gratings(FBGs)in selected cores of multicore fibers(MCFs)by using femtosecond laser pulses.The writing technology of such a key element as the FBG opens up wide opportunities for the creation of next generation fiber lasers and sensors based on MCFs.The advantages of the technology are shown by using the examples of 3D shape sensors,acoustic emission sensors with spatially multiplexed channels,as well as multicore fiber Raman lasers.

Magneto-Optic Fiber Bragg Gratings with Application to High-Resolution Magnetic Field Sensors

Magneto-optic fiber Bragg gratings （MFBG） based on magneto-optic materials have a lot of potential applications for sensing and optical signal processing. The transmission and reflection spectra of guided optical waves in the MFBG are investigated. According to the sensitivity of MFBG spectral lines to the magneto-optic coupling intensity varying with applied magnetic field, a novel magnetic field sensor of high-resolution up to 0.01 nm/（kA/m） is predicted.

The system of L-band 2 × 10 Gb/s WDM transmission over conventional single mode fibre with 600 km by chirped fibre Bragg gratings dispersion compensation

A chirped fibre Bragg grating according to ITU-T suggested L-band （2nd channel λ1 = 1570.83 nm; 80th channel λ2 = 1603.57 nm） with more than 1800 ps/nm single channel dispersion compensation is presented in this paper, of which the cladding mode loss, the delay curve ripple and the power fluctuation of the reflected spectrum are less than 0.5 dB, 50 ps and 0.25 dB, respectively. With this new FBG as dispersion compensation device, a 2 × 10 Gb/s wavelength division multiplexing （WDM） L-band transmission of 600 km based on conventional single mode fibre （G.652 fibre） is performed without forward error correction. The bit error rate （BER） is less than 10-12 and the power penalties of the 2nd and 80th channel of L-band are 1.8 dB and 2.0 dB, respectively.

Experimental investigation of pre-irradiation effect on radiation sensitivity of temperature sensing fiber Bragg gratings

The effect of pre-irradiation on radiation sensitivity of fiber Bragg gratings （FBGs） is verified experimentally. FBGs are fabricated in photosensitive optical fibers and single mode fibers with Ce-concentration in a range from 3 mol% to 23.37 mol% in the core. In experiments, the FBGs are subjected to twice v-radiation exposures to a Co^60 source at a dose-rate of 0.1 Gy/s up to a total dose of 50 kGy. Pre-irradiation treatment can reduce the temperature sensitivity variation of FBGs by 18.12%-35.91%, as well as Bragg wavelength shift （BWS） by 8%-27.08 %. Our research demonstrates that pre-irradiation treatment is a feasible method to improve the radiation tolerance of FBGs.

Tunable Super-Structured Fiber Bragg Gratings with Perfect Sequences Based on m-Sequence

Recently, a tunable fiber Bragg grating(FBG) was developed by using stress-responsive colloidal crystals. In this paper, we have simulated the application of these nanoparticles into the super-structured fiber Bragg grating(SSFBG) written with perfect sequences derived from a short maximal-length sequence. A tunable SSFBG will be available to overcome the prohibitive temperature variation of the optical codecs. Nevertheless,we presented a method to implement coherent time spreading optical code-division multiple-access(OCDMA) where a unique code(or perfect sequence) can be reused and mixed with different wavelengths to obtain a tunable wavelength-division multiplexing(WDM)system. In order to maximize the binary throughput, we have selected a unique short maximal-length sequence composed of 7 chips that can be tuned with 7 different optical wavelengths. We found thousands of different tunable combinations that presented power contrast ratios(P/C) higher than 12 dB. When a WDM-OCDMA system used 2 different combinations simultaneously, the perfect binary detection with error correction codes was achieved successfully. The tunable SSFBG with colloidal crystals will be a simple and good alternative choice for fiber-to-the-home(FTTH) communications.

Femtosecond laser direct written fiber Bragg gratings with narrow bandwidth and high sideband suppression

Aiming for suppressing side-mode and spectrum broadening,a slit beam-shaping method and super-Gaussian apodization processing for femtosecond laser point-by-point(PbP)inscription technology of fiber Bragg gratings(FBGs)are reported here.High-quality FBGs,featuring narrow bandwidth of less than 0.3 nm,high reflectivity above 85%,low insertion loss(0.21 dB),and low cladding loss(0.82 dB),were obtained successfully.By a semi-automatic PbP inscription process,an array consisting of six FBGs,exhibiting almost no side-mode peaks with high suppression ability and narrow bandwidth,was fabricated along three independently developed single-mode fibers with an interval of 20 mm.

Fiber oscillator of 5 kW using fiber Bragg gratings inscribed by a visible femtosecond laser

We fabricate a pair of fiber Bragg gratings(FBGs)by a visible femtosecond laser phase mask scanning technique on passive large-mode-area double-cladding fibers for multi-kilowatt fiber oscillators.The bandwidth of high-reflection(HR)and lowreflection(LR)FBG is~1.6 nm and 0.3 nm,respectively.The reflection of the HR-FBG is higher than 99%,and that of the LR-FBG is about 10%.A bidirectional pumped all-fiber oscillator is constructed using this pair of FBGs,a record output power of 5027 W located in the signal core is achieved with a slope efficiency of~82.1%,and the beam quality factor M2is measured to be~1.6 at the maximum power.The FBGs are simply fixed on a water cooling plate without a special package,and the thermal efficiency of the HR-FBG and the LR-FBG is 2.76℃/kW and 1℃/kW,respectively.Our research provides an effective solution for robust high-power all-fiber laser oscillators.

Angle amplifier in a 2D beam scanning system based on peristrophic multiplexed volume Bragg gratings

In this paper,a 2D angle amplifier based on peristrophic multiplexed volume Bragg gratings is designed and prepared,in which a calculation method is firstly proposed to optimize the number of channels to a minimum.The induction of peristrophic multiplexing reduces the performance difference in one bulk of the grating,whereas there is no need to deliberately optimize the fabrication process.It is revealed that a discrete 2D angle deflection range of±30°is obtained and the relative diffraction efficiency of all the grating channels reaches more than 55%with a root-meansquare deviation of less than 3.4%in the same grating.The deviation of the Bragg incidence and exit angles from the expected values is less than 0.07°.It is believed that the proposed 2D angle amplifier has the potential to realize high-performance and large-angle beam steering in high-power laser beam scanning systems.

Speckle-based interrogation system for quasi-distributed weak fiber Bragg gratings

A simple quasi-distributed fiber sensing interrogation system based on random speckles is proposed for weak fiber Bragg gratings(WFBGs) in this work. Without using tunable lasers or spectrometers, a piece of multimode fiber is applied to interrogate the WFBGs relying on the wavelength sensitivity of speckles. Instead of the CCD sensor, an InGaAs quadrant detector serves as the receiver to capture the fast-changing speckle patterns. A supervised deep learning algorithm of the multilayer perceptron architecture is implemented to process speckle data and to interrogate temperature changes or dynamic strains. The proposed demodulation system is experimentally demonstrated for WFBGs with 0.1% reflectivity.The experimental results demonstrate that the new system is capable of measuring temperature change with an accuracy of 1℃ and achieving dynamic frequency of 100 Hz. This speckle-based interrogation system paves a new way for distributed WFBGs sensing with a simple design.

Waveguide Bragg Grating for Fault Localization in PON

Femtosecond laser direct inscription is a technique especially useful for prototyping purposes due to its distinctive advantages such as high fabrication accuracy,true 3D processing flexibility,and no need for mold or photomask.In this paper,we demonstrate the design and fabrication of a planar lightwave circuit(PLC)power splitter encoded with waveguide Bragg gratings(WBG)using a femtosecond laser inscription technique for passive optical network(PON)fault localization application.Both the reflected wavelengths and intervals of WBGs can be conveniently tuned.In the experiment,we succeeded in directly inscribing WBGs in 1×4 PLC splitter chips with a wavelength interval of about 4 nm and an adjustable reflectivity of up to 70% in the C-band.The proposed method is suitable for the prototyping of a PLC splitter encoded with WBG for PON fault localization applications.

Monitoring shear deformation of sliding zone via fiber Bragg grating and particle image velocimetry

Monitoring shear deformation of sliding zones is of great significance for understanding the landslide evolution mechanism,in which fiber optic strain sensing has shown great potential.However,the cor-relation between strain measurements of quasi-distributed fiber Bragg grating(FBG)sensing arrays and shear displacements of surrounding soil remains elusive.In this study,a direct shear model test was conducted to simulate the shear deformation of sliding zones,in which the soil internal deformation was captured using FBG strain sensors and the soil surface deformation was measured by particle image velocimetry(PIV).The test results show that there were two main slip surfaces and two secondary ones,developing a spindle-shaped shear band in the soil.The formation of the shear band was successfully captured by FBG sensors.A sinusoidal model was proposed to describe the fiber optic cable deformation behavior.On this basis,the shear displacements and shear band widths were calculated by using strain measurements.This work provides important insight into the deduction of soil shear deformation using soil-embedded FBG strain sensors.

Field-programmable gate array-based large-capacity sensing network with 1642 ultra-weak fiber Bragg gratings

A field-programmable gate array （FPGA）-based large-capacity sensing network with ultra-weak fiber Bragg gratings （FBGs） is proposed and experimentally studied. The demodulation system is constructed to interrogate 1642 serial time-division-multiplexing FBGs with a peak refleetivity of about -40 dB and equal separations of 2.5 m. Two semiconductor optical amplifiers and an InGaAs linear sensor array controlled by an FPGA are introduced to the demodulation system to achieve fast, precise, and flexible interrogation. The low crosstalk and spectral distortion axe investigated through both theoretical analysis and experiments.

Study on Multiplexing Ability of Identical Fiber Bragg Gratings in a Single Fiber

The multiplexing ability of a novel multiplexing fiber Bragg grating （FBG） method based on Optical Time Domain Reflecto meter （OTDR） and Time Division Multiplexing TDM technologies has been theoretically analyzed and studied. This method permits the interrogation of hundreds of identical FBGs with low reflectivity in a single fiber, making the FBG sensors more applicable in the aerospace health monitoring engineering. The analysis shows that the multiplexing ability can be greatly improved if the FBG reflectivity is sufficiently low. And hence, an inexpensive large-scale distributed sensing system based on this method can be realized, When evaluating the multiplexing ability of this system, we propose for the first time that the interference effect of multi-reflections among FBGs should be taken into consideration.

2D and 3D Shape Sensing Based on 7-Core Fiber Bragg Gratings

A fiber-optic shape sensing based on 7-core fiber Bragg gratings(FBGs)is proposed and experimentally demonstrated.The investigations are presented for two-dimensional(2D)and three-dimensional(3D)shape reconstruction by distinguishing bending and twisting of 7-core optical fiber with FBGs.The curvature and bending orientation can be calculated by acquiring FBG wavelengths from any two side cores among the six outer cores.And the shape sensing in 3D space is computed by analytic geometry theory.The experiments corresponding of 2D and 3D shape sensing are demonstrated and conducted to verify the theoretical principles.The resolution of curvature is about 0.1 m^(-1) for 2D measuring.The error of angle in shape reconstruction is about 1.89°for 3D measuring.The proposed sensing technique based on 7-core FBGs is promising of high feasibility,stability,and repeatability,especially for the distinguishing ability on the bending orientation due to the six symmetrical cores on the cross-section.