Longitudinal strain sensing with photonic crystal fibers and fiber Bragg gratings

Photonic crystal fibers (PCF), sometimes also referred to as microstructured fibers (MSF), have been a subject of extensive research for over a decade. This is mainly due to the fact that by changing the geometry and distribution of the air holes the fiber properties can be significantly modified and tailored to specific applications. In this paper we present the results of a numerical analysis of the influence of the air-hole distribution on the sensitivity of the propagated modes' effective refractive index to externally applied longitudinal strain. We propose an optimal strain sensitive fiber design, with a number of fibers drawn and experimentally evaluated to confirm the theoretical results. Furthermore as the direct measurement of the effective refractive index change may be complex and challenging in field environment, we propose to use fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) in our sensing set-up. As the Bragg wavelength is a function of the effective refractive index, the external strain changes can be monitored through the Bragg wavelength shift with a simple optical spectrometer. Moreover, since the PCF is also optimized for low-loss splicing with standard single mode fiber, our novel sensor head can be used with standard off-the-shelf components in complex multiplexed sensing arrays, with the measured signal transmitted to and from the sensor head by standard telecom fibers, which significantly reduces costs.