IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 12, NO.

5, MAY 2000

531

Optical Bend Sensor Based on Measurement of Resonance Mode Splitting of Long-Period Fiber Grating
Y. Liu, L. Zhang, J. A. R. Williams, and I. Bennion
AbstractWe report an effective new method of realizing optical bend sensing based on the measurement of bending-curvature encoded resonance mode splitting of long-period fiber grating. The bending induced mode splitting exhibits a near-linear response and the bending sensitivity achieved by this method is nearly four times higher than the previously reported wavelength shift detection method. The evolution of the transmission loss under bending appears dependent on the initial mode coupling strength. Index TermsFiber mode coupling, long-period fiber grating, optical bend sensor, optical sensing, resonance mode splitting.

II. EXPERIMENT The LPFGs used in the bending experiments were UV written using a 30-mm-long amplitude mask with a period of 430 m on photosensitive B/Ge co-doped single-mode fiber without hydrogen loading. A computer-controlled continuous wave (CW) UV beam scanning system was used to inscribe the fringe pattern in the fiber. The grating growth was monitored in situ using a broadband light source and an optical spectrum analyzer. During fabrication, we were able to control the coupling strength for each cladding mode by altering either the UV power level or the scanning beam speed. A four-point bend system was designed for implementing a curvature measurement experiment. Fig. 1(a) shows the geometric configuration of this system. The fiber containing the LPFG was attached to a 0.5-mm-thick 20-mm-wide 150-mm-long metal plate. In order to eliminate the axial strain, only the two ends of a 10-cm central section of the fiber were fixed loosely on to the metal plate. The fiber was bent by depressing the center of the metal plate with a micrometer driver. ) induced in the fiber can be calculated from The curvature ( (1) is radius of the bent metal plate, and is the where the bending depth which can be accurately read from the micrometer. The and are the design structure parameters. Since and , we can obtain from (1) the following approximation: (2) ) against according to both Fig. 1(b) plots the curvature ( (1) and (2). The two curves are virtually coincident in the curvature range between 05 m , demonstrating the validity of (2) as a good approximation in the experimental range discussed here. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Bending tests were carried out on LPFG samples with a range of values of the initial coupling strength. Before the LPFGs were subjected to bending, there were, as shown in Fig. 2(a), five single transmission loss peaks corresponding to five coupled cladding modes (LP to LP ) in the wavelength range between 11001600 nm. Under bending, which breaks the symmetry between the two normally degenerate spatial cladding

I. INTRODUCTION HOTOINDUCED long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs) are mode coupling devices which couple light from the LP core mode into the LP cladding modes in single-mode fiber [1]. The resonance wavelengths, and the strength of the coupling process are both sensitive to axial and transverse strain, temperature, and ambient refractive index [2][4]. Furthermore, since the fiber cladding diameter is much greater than the wavelength of light, any small bend in the fiber induces large phase shifts in the cladding modes, with corresponding changes in their coupling strengths. Several authors have demonstrated LPFG bend sensors measuring curvature by detecting the bending-induced wavelength shift [5], [6]. Recently, Rathje et al. have reported observation of resonance mode splitting by an LPFG produced in a fiber with a large core concentricity error [7]. In this paper, we report the realization of an experimental result demonstrating optical bend sensor based on the measurement of bending-induced resonance mode splitting of the LPFG produced in normal single-mode B/Ge photosensitive fiber. This is a new approach to fiber optic bend sensing which exhibits a significantly higher sensitivity than alternatives utilizing wavelength shift detection [5]. We have also investigated the effect of the initial mode coupling strength on the spectral response evolution of the sensor under bending yielding practical design information.

Manuscript received November 29, 1999; revised January 17, 2000. This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The authors are with Photonics Research Group, Electronics Engineering and Applied Science, Aston University, Birmingham, U.K. (e-mail: liuy@aston.ac.uk). Publisher Item Identifier S 1041-1135(00)03590-4.

10411135/00$10.00 2000 IEEE

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IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 12, NO. 5, MAY 2000

(a)

(b)

Fig. 1. (a) Geometric configuration of the four-point bending system. a = 120 mm, b = 20 mm, bending depth h = 08 mm. (b) Plots of bending curvature against bending depth calculated from (1) and (2), showing a linear characteristic expression and a good agreement between the exact expression and the approximation.

modes, introducing a refractive index difference between them [8], we anticipate the mode splitting. In our experiment, the resonance splitting was not apparent until the applied curvature was 0.4 m . With further bending, each individual single peak split into two peaks as illustrated in Fig. 2(a), which separated as bending increased. It gradually appeared for all five modes with further bending, as illustrated in Fig. 2(b), each individual single peak has split into two peaks. Fig. 2(b) plots the splitting against the curvature for LP and LP modes. It is clear that the mode splitting response of both modes to the bending is near-linear, but the higher order mode LP exhibits a higher linearity and bending sensitivity. Up to 70-nm splitting was measured for LP mode corresponding to a maximum curvature of 5 m , giving a bending sensitivity of 14 nm/m which is nearly four times higher than the value demonstrated by the wavelength shift detection method [5]. The transmission loss of the split modes in the bending tests decreased or increased depending on the initial mode coupling strength of the grating. Fig. 3(a) and (b) illustrate the spectral evolution of LP mode of two gratings showing opposite trends for the transmission loss. In the case of grating A, dB) single loss peak originally, its split which had a higher ( peak at the long wavelength side gradually decreased, whereas its other peak at the short wavelength side increased, both fidB. By contrast, despite nally reaching a similar value of the fact that the original transmission loss of grating B was only 3 dB, both the split peaks grew higher simultaneously with the bending, eventually reaching a value of 10 dB. The original and the evolving transmission loss profiles of gratings A and B can be well explained in terms of their coupling strengths from the coupled mode theory [9]. According to the theory the transmission of an LPFG at the phase match condition can be expressed as

Fig. 2. Transmission spectra of LP mode: (a) with and without resonance mode splitting and (b) the mode splitting against bending curvature showing a near-linear response and higher bending sensitivity for high-order mode.

(3) is the coupling strength for th cladding mode. where the , the light is completely coupled Clearly, when to the cladding mode resulting in a 100% transmission loss , all the light is coupled back to the core whereas if mode indicating a zero transmission loss. Fig. 4 plots the transmission profiles of the LP mode of five gratings (including gratings A and B) which were produced using the same UV power level of different exposure time. The figure shows that the transmission loss grows initially with UV exposure reaching a maximum corresponding to the situation . The transmission where the coupling strength is near to loss then decreases with further exposure as the coupling strength approaching . We have evaluated the initial coupling strengths of grating A and B by modeling the measured spectra. Grating A was less UV exposed giving an initial-coupling , therefore, exhibiting strength of 1.47 which is close to a higher original transmission loss of 10 dB. When it was

LIU et al.: OPTICAL BEND SENSOR

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Fig. 3. Spectral evolution of grating A and B under bending.

subjected to bending, the coupling strength deceased from , the transmission loss was thus reduced. Grating B had a longer UV exposure but exhibited a lower transmission loss, which suggests that its initial-coupling strength is greater than , in good agreement with the calculated value of 2.44. , Under bending, its coupling strength decayed toward resulting in an increase in transmission loss. Clearly, for practical sensing, sensors like grating B which has a near- initial-coupling strength are more preferred because they facilitate high precision measurement since their profiles are enhanced with bending. Such LPFG sensors can be easily realized by properly controlling the UV exposure condition in fabrication. Rotational dependence of the bend sensitivity of LPFGs has been observed by Patrick [5] and by Rathje [7] in highly Ge-doped fiber and in fiber with a large core concentricity error, respectively. However, we did not observe this effect in our LPFGs produced in normal single-mode B/Ge photosensitive fiber. The resonance splitting was measured for four fiber orientations corresponding to rotating angles of 0, 90, 180, and 270 . The maximum discrepancy in the bend sensitivity between the different orientations was less than 1 nm/m . This agrees with the observation by Rathje et al. in [7] where they concluded that the resonance mode splitting is almost rotationally symmetric for the LPFGs in the fiber with the low core concentricity error. IV. CONCLUSION We have presented a new optical bend sensing technique based on the measurement of the bending induced resonance mode splitting of an LPFG. The near-linear response and high sensitivity to bending demonstrated by this technique are more attractive for optical bend sensing than the wavelength shift detection method. In addition, a study of the effect of the initial mode coupling strength on the transmission profile under bending suggests that LPFGs with near- initial-coupling strength are better for performing high precision measurement. Exact theoretical analysis of the resonance mode splitting of LPFG under bending is more complex and further work along this direction is in progress.

Fig. 4. The growth of LPFG with UV exposure showing the transmission loss increases as the coupling strength  L grows from zero to =2, then decreases as  L from =2 to  . Theoretically modeled spectra for grating A and B are plotted as dotted lines.

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