Noise analysis of solid-core polarization-maintaining photonic interferometer fiber optic gyroscope

We report the prediction of the random walk coefficient of a solid-core single-mode polarization-maintaining photonic interferometer fiber optic gyroscope, a novel sensor that exhibits reduced thermal sensitivity owing to the stable temperature coefficient use of a photonic fiber. The random walk coefficient of the photonic interferometer fiber optic gyroscope is limited by detector thermal noise for detected powers under 1 μW and excess noise above 1 μW. Above this power level, the random walk coefficient is found to be independent of detected power and asymptotically to be 0.0029°/ \(\sqrt h \). This result is verified by the experiment.     

Analysis of shupe effect in polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber-optic gyroscope

The Shupe effect in a fiber optical gyroscope with polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber was studied. The thermal sensitivitise of the polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber and conventional polarization-maintaining fiber were simulated and measured. Then the Shupe error in the gyroscope was analyzed. The contrast results showed that the Shupe error of the gyroscope with the polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber is quantitatively comparable to that using the conventional polarization-maintaining fiber.     

High-temperature sensor using a Fabry-Perot interferometer based on solid-core photonic crystal fiber

A micro Fabry-Perot interferometer(M-FPI) is constructed by splicing a short section of polarizationmaintaining photonic crystal fiber(PM-PCF) to an end-cleaved single-mode fiber with controllable offset. Due to the high effective optical path difference induced by the solid core of the PCF,the M-FPI has an ultrasmall cavity of approximately 110μm.The temperature sensitivity within a range from 33℃to approximately 600℃is measured to be 13.8 pm/℃,which shows good agreement with the theoretical result.This proposed sensor has the advantages of ultracompact size and high stability.Therefore,it is suitable for various space-limited sensing applications in harsh environments.     

Temperature-insensitive strain measurement using a birefringent interferometer based on a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber

We propose a novel and simple scheme for a temperature-insensitive strain measurement by using a birefringent interferometer configured by a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF). The wavelength-dependent periodic transmission in a birefringent interferometer can be achieved by using a PM-PCF between two linear polarizers. Since the PM-PCF is composed of a single material, such as silica, the peak wavelength shift with temperature variation can be negligible because of the small amount of the birefringence change of the PM-PCF with temperature change. The measured temperature sensitivity is −0.3 pm/°C. However, the peak wavelength can be changed by strain because the peak wavelength shift is directly proportion to strain change. The strain sensitivity is measured to be 1.3 pm/με in a strain range from 0 to 1600 με. The measurement resolution of the strain is estimated to be 2.1 με. The proposed scheme has advantages of simple structure and low loss without a Sagnac loop, temperature insensitivity, ease installation, and short length of a sensing probe compared with a conventional PMF-based Sagnac loop interferometer.     

Longitudinal polarization stability of near-elliptic inner-cladding polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber

A novel theoretical analysis model of fiber birefringence and extinction ratio deterioration induced by longitudinal stochastic variation in diameter of silica capillaries for fiber preform is established based on three-dimensional full-vector beam propagation method (3D-FV-BPM) and Jones Matrix method. The longitudinal polarization stability of near-elliptic inner-cladding polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (NEIC-PM-PCF) is analyzed and compared with near Panda clading photonic crystal fiber (NPC-PCF) and near rectangle photonic crystal fiber (NR-PCF) in detail. The longitudinal diameter tolerance ranges of capillaries could be calculated for a given extinction ratio and a certain fiber length, which shows a good reference for fabricating NEIC-PM-PCFs.     

双包层大模场面积保偏掺镱光子晶体光纤研究

采用改进的化学气相沉积法和溶液掺杂法制备出掺镱石英光纤预制棒,以该预制棒为有源纤芯制备芯区直径约为30μm的双包层保偏掺镱光子晶体光纤.模拟计算得到该保偏光纤的模场面积约232μm2,双折射系数B为5×10-5.利用该光纤分别进行了脉冲激光和连续激光的放大测试实验,在国内首次实现了高效率的飞秒激光放大,2 m长的光子晶体光纤可得到1.64 W的激光输出,激光放大斜率效率为49.8%.同时5 m长的光纤还能够实现8.12 W的连续激光放大输出,斜率效率达到55.9%,具有较高的斜率效率.此外,该光纤消光比约10 dB,具有良好的保偏特性.     

Dispersion-flattened polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber for nonlinear applications

In this paper, we propose a novel photonic crystal fiber design to achieve high birefringence, high nonlinearity with a flattened dispersion profile. The air holes which are embedded in silica are arranged in triangular lattice configuration. In the core region, an air hole is introduced as the central defect to flatten the dispersion curve. The shape of the defect air hole is deliberately designed elliptical so that high birefringence in the PCF is obtained for polarization-maintaining purpose. The structural parameters are carefully selected to optimize the optical properties.     

Multi-wavelength fiber laser in single-longitudinal mode operation using a photonic crystal fiber Sagnac interferometer

In this paper, we report a new configuration of a tunable multi-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser based on the commercial optical multiplexers and a Sagnac interferometer which includes a section of a high-birefringent photonic crystal fiber. Four-wavelength laser emission lines were obtained simultaneously in single-longitudinal mode operation showing a power instability lower than 1 dB, and an optical signal-to-noise ratio higher than 65 dB for all the emitted wavelengths. This proposed configuration allows the individual control of the loss of each channel of the laser and because of it is based on the commercial ITU-grid multiplexers, the laser is adapted to the telecommunications channel’s normative.     

Optical rotation conveyor belt based on a polarization-maintaining hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Optical Review - Hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HCPCFs), a form of optical conveyer belts, have been used to guide particles for many years. However, only the translational motions of a...     

In-line fiber-optic etalon formed by hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

A novel fiber-optic in-line etalon formed by splicing a section of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) in between two single-mode fibers is proposed and demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge. Such a HCPCF-based etalon acts as an excellent optical waveguide to form a Fabry-Perot interferometer and hence allows the cavity length to be as long as several centimeters with good visibility as the transmission loss of the HCPCF is much smaller than that of a hollow core fiber; this offers great potential to generate a practical dense fiber-optic sensor network with spatial frequency division-multiplexing. This novel etalon is demonstrated for strain measurement, and the experimental results show that a good visibility of 0.3 and a strain accuracy of better than +/- 5 microepsilon are achieved.     

Highly sensitive bend sensor based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer using photonic crystal fiber

Optical fiber bend sensor with photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is demonstrated experimentally. The results show that the PCF-based MZI is sensitive to bending with a sensitivity of 3.046 nm/m⁻¹ and is independent on temperature with a sensitivity of 0.0019 nm/°C, making it the best candidate for temperature insensitive bend sensors. To that end, another kind of bend sensor with higher sensitivity of 5.129 nm/m⁻¹ is proposed, which is constructed by combining an LPFG and an MZI with zero offset at the second splice mentioned above.     

Discrimination of strain and temperature based on a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber incorporating an erbium-doped fiber

A simple sensing method for simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain is investigated by using a Sagnac fiber loop mirror composed of a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF) incorporating an erbium-doped fiber (EDF). Amplified spontaneous emission created by a pumped EDF is transmitted to a Sagnac fiber loop mirror. The interference between two counter-propagating signals in a Sagnac fiber loop mirror generates a periodic transmission spectrum with respect to wavelength. When external temperature is increased, the transmission peak power reduces because the amplified spontaneous emission of the EDF is decreased by the applied temperature change (0.04 dB/°C). The peak wavelength is shifted into the shorter wavelength because of the negative temperature dependence of the birefringence of the PM-PCF (0.3 pm/°C). As the applied strain increases, the peak wavelength of the transmission spectrum of the Sagnac loop mirror incorporating the EDF shifts into a longer wavelength (1.3 pm/με) because the phase change of the proposed sensing probe is directly proportional to the applied strain. The transmission peak power, however, is not changed by the applied strain. Since the source and the sensing probe are integrated, the overall system configuration is significantly simplified without requiring any additional broadband light source. Therefore, it is possible to simultaneously measure temperature and strain by monitoring the variation of transmission peak power and peak wavelength, respectively.     

Novel modal interferometer based on ring-core photonic crystal fiber

An original design of ring-core photonic crystal fiber （RPCF） is proposed. By splicing a section of the homemade RPCF between two segments of single mode fibers （SMFs）, a simple modal interferometer is presented and experimentally demonstrated. Owing to the effects of the collapsed region, the ring modes in RPCF can be effectively activated. To our knowledge, it is the first time to demonstrate the modal interferometer based on the interference between the ring modes, which is different from the previously reported interferometers based on the interference between core modes or cladding modes. The temperature and strain characteristics of the interferometers with different lengths of RPCF are investigated.     

Improved design of polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fibers

We propose the realization of single-polarization operation in highly birefringent photonic crystal fibers. The suppression of one of the polarization states is realized by introducing index-matched cladding defect waveguides. The leakage loss of the index-matched polarization state can be enhanced by nearly 4 orders of magnitude. In particular, polarization-dependent loss larger than 2.97 dB/m with transmission loss lower than 0.03 dB/m in a wavelength region ranging from 1.54 to 1.566 microm can be realized in one such fiber.     

Polarization-dependent two-color dispersion wave generation and evolution in polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber

We investigate the effect of the polarization state of the input pulses on the visible emissions in the anomalous dispersion region of polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF), by using ～100 fs pump pulses whose central wavelength (1064 nm) is close to the second zero dispersion wavelength (1100 nm) of the fiber, where the soliton fission mechanisms play an important role. The experimental results show that the phase-matching two-color dispersive wave emission, one at 582 nm and the other at 600 nm, is polarization-dependent and frequency shift results from the different dispersion characteristics along the two orthogonal principal axes of PM-PCF. Furthermore, it is observed for the first time that the variation of the linear input polarization angles in 45° region almost has no influence on the output spectral profiles, and the break variation of the output spectrum exists when the angle between the polarization of the linear incident pulse and the fast-axis or the slow-axis of PM-PCF is 45°, which are attributed to the coupling between the two polarization modes in high birefringent PM-PCF.     

Temperature characteristics of a core-mode interferometer based on a dual-core photonic crystal fiber

A core-mode Fabry–Perot (FP) interferometer is constructed by using a dual-core photonic crystal fiber (DCPCF). The FP cavity is formed by a single piece of DCPCF, which can also serve as a direct sensing probe without any additional components. We theoretically and experimentally studied its temperature responses in the range of 40–480 °C. The temperature sensitivity is 13 pm/°C which matches the theoretical results. Since the temperature sensitivity of the proposed sensor is independent on cavity length, precise control of the length of FP cavity or photonic crystal fiber is not required. The sensor size can be as short as 100–200 μm, and its fabrication only involves splicing and cleaving, which make the sensor production very cost-effective. The proposed FP interferometric sensor based on a DCPCF can find applications in high-temperature measurement especially those that need accurate point measurement with high sensitivity.     

Temperature-independent curvature sensor based on tapered photonic crystal fiber interferometer

A temperature-independent highly-sensitive curvature sensor by using a tapered-photonic crystal fiber (PCF)-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. It is fabricated by sandwiching a tapered-PCF between two standard single mode fibers (SMFs) with the air holes of the PCF in the fusion splicing region being fully collapsed. The tapering of PCF is found to enhance the sensitivity significantly. Large curvature sensitivities of 2.81 dB/m⁻¹ and 8.35 dB/m⁻¹ are achieved in the measurement ranges of 0.36-0.87 m⁻¹ and 0.87-1.34 m⁻¹, respectively, with the resolution of 0.0012 m⁻¹ being guaranteed. The proposed sensor also shows negligible temperature sensitivity less than 0.006 dB/°C.     

Mach-Zehnder interferometer formed in a photonic crystal fiber based on a pair of long-period fiber gratings

We demonstrate implementation of an all-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer formed in a photonic crystal fiber (PCF). We formed the all-PCF Mach-Zehnder interferometer by mechanically inducing two identical long-period fiber gratings (LPGs) in the PCF. The spectral properties of a LPG and a LPG pair were investigated. The interference fringe formed within the stop band of the LPG pair varied with the period and the strength of the gratings, and the fringe spacing was decreased with increasing grating separation. From the fringe spacing measurement the differential effective group index of the PCF was calculated to be deltam approximately equal to 2.8 x 10(-3).     

Parabolic pulse generation in a dispersion-decreasing solid-core photonic bandgap Bragg fiber

We analyze the interplay of nonlinearity and dispersion in a dispersion-decreasing photonic bandgap Bragg fiber as a new platform for generating parabolic pulses. A suitably designed linearly tapered, low-index-contrast, solid-core Bragg fiber - amenable to fabrication by conventional modified chemical vapor deposition technology - is shown to yield stable parabolic pulses. The fiber design was optimized through a simple and accurate transfer-matrix formalism and pulse evolution was studied by the well-known split-step Fourier method. Our study revealed feasibility of generating parabolic pulses in such a dispersion-decreasing Bragg fiber of length as short as 1 m. We have also studied the effect of third order dispersion on generated parabolic pulse, which is an important deteriorating factor in such applications. The effective single-mode operation of the proposed device is achieved through appropriate tailoring of the outer cladding layers.     

High-pressure and high-temperature characteristics of a Fabry-Perot interferometer based on photonic crystal fiber

A fiber-optic Fabry-Perot interferometer was constructed by splicing a short length of photonic crystal fiber to a standard single-mode fiber. The photonic crystal fiber functions as a Fabry-Perot cavity and serves as a direct sensing probe without any additional components. Its pressure and temperature responses in the range of 0-40 MPa and 25°C-700°C were experimentally studied. The proposed sensor is easy to fabricate, potentially low-cost, and compact in size, which makes it very attractive for high-pressure and high-temperature sensing applications.