Fibre-optic sensors using long-period gratings and microlens arrays

In this project, two fibre-optic sensing systems were developed which use long-period fibre grating (LPG) and Brillouin scattering in single-mode fibre for temperature and bending measurement. In order to realize the LPG grating sensor, two novel LPG fabrication techniques, namely, the microlens array technique and the plano-convex microlens techniques were also developed in this project.; The microlens array is characterized by a higher transmission efficiency of UV laser light and higher LPG inscription efficiency than other conventional method, such as the amplitude mask technique. By using the same hydrogen loaded germanosilicate fibre and UV laser irradiation, the microlens array technique can produce an LPG rejection band with a peak loss of −11 dB after 50 seconds of UV laser irradiation while using a metal amplitude mask, a −10.9 dB resonant peak can only be produced after 200 seconds of UV laser irradiation.; The microlens array technique was further improved by polishing the microlens array to produce the piano-convex microlens array via which the problems of damage to the microlens array and fibre due to internal focusing and excessive power on the inscription plane were eliminated. Also, the new method is capable of selective control of resonant peaks at higher harmonic frequencies by using the plano-convex microlens array with different polishing depths.; In the second stage of the study, a highly sensitive temperature sensor based on a packaged LPG was developed. In addition, a low-cost and high return loss fibre-optic switch was implemented with this packaged LPG.; In this project a simple LPG bending sensor was developed which is based on the measurement of total transmitted power, instead of the wavelength shift. It has been shown that the total transmitted power from a LPG has a linear response with respect to the bending curvature within the range from 0 to 0.001 mm−1. Therefore, this kind of LPGs can be used as bending sensors for different structures with a simple decoding scheme by measuring the total transmitted power. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...