Optimal design of temperature-insensitive long period fiber gratings for athermal refractive-index sensor

Based on coupled-mode theory of long-period fiber grating (LPFG), a theoretical analysis and simulations for the optimal design of a temperature-insensitive LPFG is presented in order to achieve an athermal condition for sensing the refractive index of the external medium. Effects of the variation of the cladding radius and grating period on the temperature sensitivity of the LPFG are discussed. Both of these parameters are found to be important to control the temperature sensitivity when the thermo-optic coefficients of core and cladding materials are of the same order. Other grating parameters are also optimized in order to achieve a good contrast of the grating period with resonance wavelength in the 1.5 mu m region and to sense the external medium refractive index over a wide range. Variation of external medium refractive index from 1.0 to 1.45 results a red-shift in the LPFG resonance wavelength by 86 nm with its temperature sensitivity as low as 0.008 nm/degrees C over a temperature range of 0-80 degrees C for this optimally designed LPFG (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier GmbH.