Effects of thickness and external refractive index in coated tilted fiber Bragg gratings

In this work, an experimental analysis on the spectral effects induced by depositing a uniform high refractive index (HRI) thin coating on weakly tilted fiber Bragg gratings (TFBGs) is carried out. First, two weakly TFBGs presenting different tilt angles were fabricated. Successively, by using dip-coating technique, two different coating thicknesses were deposited on each of them. The transmission spectra of the obtained structures were collected as the surrounding refractive index (SRI) changed in the range 1/1.47. The coated gratings present some differences in their spectrum evolution, that can be opportunely exploited. The coated configuration could improve some aspects of previous demodulation techniques exploited in the case of bare TFBGs. Moreover, an important effect of HRI coatings is to enhance the SRI sensitivity of the spectral position of the dips corresponding to cladding modes coupling, leading to different interrogation method for sensing applications.