ARTICLE IN PRESS

Optik
Optik 119 (2008) 535–539
Optics
www.elsevier.de/ijleo

A novel fiber Bragg grating high-temperature sensor$

Yage Zhana,, Shaolin Xuea, Qinyu Yanga, Shiqing Xiangb, Hong Heb, Rude Zhub
a
Department of Applied Physics, College of Science, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
b
Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China

Received 25 May 2006; received in revised form 21 February 2007; accepted 25 February 2007

Abstract
A novel fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor for the measurement of high temperature is proposed and experimentally
demonstrated. The interrogation system of the sensor system is simple, low cost but effective. The sensor head is
comprised of one FBG and two metal rods. The lengths of the rods are different from each other. The coefficients of
thermal expansion of the rods are also different from each other. The FBG will be strained by the sensor head when the
temperature to be measured changes. The temperature is measured basis of the wavelength shifts of the FBG induced
by strain. A dynamic range of 0–800 1C and a resolution of 1 1C have been obtained by the sensor system. The
experiment results agree with theoretical analyses.
r 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Sensor; Fiber Bragg grating; High temperature

1. Introduction sensors are the most appropriate sensors for monitoring

Reliable high-temperature sensors are important and
indispensable in some fields, such as in some structure
health monitoring and material processing, electrical
transformer, petroleum pipeline and so on [1,2]. Tradi-
tional electrical high-temperature sensors have some
disadvantages, including low reliability, large tempera-
ture fluctuation and latent danger of fire accident.
Optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors have numer-
ous advantages over traditional electrical sensors, such
as immunity to electromagnetic interference, higher
stability and sensitivity, more easiness of multiplex,
being competent for application in harsh environments,
‘‘smart structures’’ and on-site measurements [3,4]. FBG
$ high-temperature object, especially for high-temperature
Project supported by Science and Technology Committee of
Shanghai (Grant No. 011661081).
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ygzhan@yahoo.com.cn (Y. Zhan).
applications in the fields mentioned above. But common
FBG sensors cannot used directly as high-temperatures
sensor because they will be decayed when its tempera-
ture higher than 200 1C and will be destroyed when its
temperature higher than 350 1C [5,6]. Until now, only a
very few kind of technologies on FBG high-temperature
measurement have been researched [7,8]. Brambilla et al.
have researched the high-temperature measurement
characteristics of FBGs that with special dopants
(such as Sn and/or Na2O). They discovered that these
FBGs exhibit unusual oscillations in reflectivity [9].
These methods are not suited for high-temperature
measurement.
This paper proposes a novel kind of FBG high-
temperature sensor. The novel sensor is very suited for
object in usual temperature atmosphere. The experi-
mental results and the characteristic of the sensor system
are also described. The sensor is based on a novel FBG

0030-4026/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijleo.2007.02.010
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
536 Y. Zhan et al. / Optik 119 (2008) 535–539
sensor head and a fiber long period grating (LPG) as a
linear edge filter for interrogation. The novel sensor
head has been designed, prepared and used in high-
temperature measurement experiments successfully. A
dynamic range of 0–800 1C and a resolution of 1 1C have
been experimentally achieved. Experimental results
agree with theoretical analyses.
2. Theoretical analyses
2.1. Principle of sensor head
Sensor head is very crucial in sensor system. But
common FBG cannot be used as high-temperature
sensor head directly. We have designed a novel
high-temperature FBG sensor head. The sensor head
is mainly comprised of a FBG and two metal
rods, as shown in Fig. 1. The two metal rods have
different length and different coefficient of ther-
mal-expansion (CTE). The lengths of the two metal
rods are L1 and L2, respectively. The CTEs of the
two metal rods are a1 and a2, respectively. The rods
are fixed into one adiabatic plate. In order that there
is not transverse thermal radiation, the two metal
rods have been protected by adiabatic cylinder1 and
adiabatic cylinder2, respectively. The left ends of the
two metal rods connect two adiabatic rods, respectively.
The FBG is pre-strained and glued to the end surface of
the adiabatic rods on points A and B. The FBG is
protected by the adiabatic cylinder3 in order that
the FBG is not be modulated by the environ-
mental temperature and the thermal radiation of the
adiabatic plate.
The sensing ends (see also in Fig. 1) touch the object
whose temperature to be measured. When temperature
to be measured is changed, the two metal rods will have
different elongation, which will make L change (the
distance between the two adiabatic rods) and the FBG
be strained. The temperature is measured basis of
wavelength shifts of the FBG.
The adiabatic cylinders are effective. The transverse
thermal radiation of the metal rods is negligible.
When the rods are in heat balance, the temperature of
each metal rod reduces linearly from whose sensing end
Adiabatic cylinder3
FBG Metal rod2(L2 α 2)
A. .
B the FBG shifts almost linearly with temperature in the
Adiabatic plate
L Adiabatic rod2
Adiabatic rod1
Object
Adiabatic cylinder1
Metal rod1(L1 α 1) Sensing ends
Adiabatic cylinder2
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of sensor head structure.
to the other end. For briefness, the length change of L is
given by
X
n
DL1 ¼ l 1j DT 1j a1j ðj ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; nÞ, (1)
j¼1
X
n
DL2 ¼ l 2j DT 2j a2j ðj ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; nÞ, (2)
j¼1
DL ¼ DL1  DL2 , (3)
where DL1 and DL2 are the elongations of the two metal
rods, respectively. DL is the length change of L, namely
the elongation of FBG section of fiber. lij, DTij and aij
(i ¼ 1, 2) are the length, average temperature and
average CTE of the jth subsection of the metal rod.
The corresponding wavelength shift DlB of the FBG is
expressed by [3,10]
   
DlB ¼ lB 1  pe  ¼ lB 1  pe
DL   DL1  DL2
¼ lB 1  pe , ð4Þ
L L
where pe ¼ ð1=ÞðDneff =neff Þ ¼ ðn2eff =2Þ½p12  nðp11 þ p12 Þ
is the effective photo-elastic coefficient of the glass fiber
with Possion ratio n. P11 and P12 are the photo-elastic
coefficients of fiber. neff is the effective refractive index
of the guide mode in the fiber. For a typical fused silica
fiber, pe ¼ 0.22.
The two metal rods of the sensor head are made from
an H62 brass rod and a 45# carbon steel rod,
respectively. The CTEs of the two metal rods are a1
and a2, respectively. a1 and a2 have been measured and
determined numerically by

a1 ¼ 15:78250 þ 0:02796  T  2:4085  105

 T 2  106 ,

a2 ¼ 10:99550 þ 0:00994  T  5:5421  105

T 2  106 . ð5Þ
In the same temperature range, a1 is larger than a2.
The lengths of the two rods are L1 and L2, respectively.
The curve of the wavelength change of the FBG have
been theoretically simulated with suppositions of both
L1 ¼ 20 cm, L2 ¼ 18 cm and L1 ¼ 18 cm, L2 ¼ 20 cm in
the range of 0–500 1C. The simulation results are shown
in Fig. 2. Similarly, the simulation results in the range of
and 0–1000 1C are shown in Fig. 3.
If L1 ¼ 20 cm and L2 ¼ 18 cm, the peak wavelength of
range of 0–800 1C. When the temperature ascends from
0 to 800 1C, it shifts 6.80 nm. Generally, 6.8 nm
wavelength shift will not induce the FBG worse or
broken.
The sensitivity of the sensor system is enhanced when
the metal rod with larger CTE is longer than the metal
rod with smaller CTE, which can be confirmed by that
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Y. Zhan et al. / Optik 119 (2008) 535–539
Fig. 2. The temperature–wavelength response of the sensor
FBG in the range of 0–500 1C.
Fig. 3. The temperature–wavelength response of the sensor
FBG in the range of 0–1000 1C.
the slope of curve (a) is larger than the slope of curve (b)
in Figs. 2 and 3. So all the experiments are implemented
in the conditions of L1 ¼ 20 cm and L2 ¼ 18 cm.
2.2. Interrogation principle
Wavelength interrogation technology is very impor-
tant for FBG sensor system. In our high-temperature
sensor system, an LPG is used as a linear response edge
filter to convert wavelength into intensity encoded
information for interrogation. The principle of using
an LPG to interrogate an FBG temperature sensor is
based on the temperature related optical intensity
measurement. Fig. 4 shows the schematic reflection
and transmission spectra of the FBG and the LPG used
537
-4
FBG
LPG
-8
Intensity (dB)
-12
-16
-20
-24
1545 1550 1555 1560
Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 4. Schematic spectra of the FBG temperature sensor and
the LPG employed as edge filter.
Coupler
Sensor head
BBS
IMG
Interrogation system
BBS: Broadband source; IMG: Index matched gel
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the sensor system.
in the experiments. The LPG is used as a linear response
edge filter because the useful spectrum region of the
LPG is shown to be nearly linear over a sufficiently wide
range [9]. If an interrogation system is arranged
according as the way shown in Fig. 8, light from the
broadband source (BBS) will be modulated by the LPG
and then illuminates the FBG via a 2  2 coupler. After
being LPG modulated, the light has a section of
available linear spectrum. The reflected light from the
FBG is detected by the photo-detectors (PD) and will
change with the Bragg wavelength shift of FBG.
Therefore, the filtering mechanism of the LPG yields a
linear relationship between the wavelength shift of FBG
and the PD detected light intensity.
3. Experiments and results
Fig. 5 shows the schematic diagram of the experi-
mental setup. The sensor head is made in accordance
with Fig. 1. A brass (H62) rod is used as the longer
metal rod with a larger CTE and a carbon steel (45#)
rod is used as the shorter metal rod with smaller CTE.

538 Y. Zhan et al. / Optik 119 (2008) 535–539
Light from the BBS illuminates the FBG through a
coupler. The lengths of the brass rod and the carbon
steel rod are 20 and 18 cm, respectively. The CTE of the
two metal rods are a1 and a2, respectively, same as
function (5). The Bragg wavelength of the FBG is
1549.96 nm after it is glued on the adiabatic rods. The
reflected light from the FBG is detected by the
wavelength interrogation system through the same
coupler. The other end of the coupler immerses in index
matching gel (IMG).
In experiments, the temperature of the sensing end is
controlled by a stove. The temperature of the stove can
be modulated by step of 0.1 1C in the range of 0–500 1C
with an accuracy of 0.2 1C. Three series of experiments
have been down.
3.1. Primary experiments
To prove elementary performance of the sensor
system, first series of experiment has been done. An
optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) has been used for
interrogating the wavelength of the sensor FBG. The
experimental setup is shown in Fig. 6.
Limited by the characteristics of present stove,
experiments are implemented in the temperature range
of 0–500 1C. The experimental result is shown in Fig. 7.
Coupler
BBS
IMG
OSA
Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup (I).
1555
Data of the experiment
1554 Fitted curve of the data
Wavelength (nm)
1553
1552
1551
1550
0 100 200 300 400
Temperature (°C)
Fig. 7. The results of the experiment.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
The curve in Fig. 7 is accordant with curve (a) in
Fig. 2 in the range of 0–500 1C. It can be deduced that
the sensor can measure the temperature in the range of
0–800 1C. The FBG had 4.25 nm wavelength shifts when
the temperature changed from 0 to 500 1C. The
theoretical value is 4.31 nm. The relative error is 1.4%.
All the experimental data in Fig. 7 can be fitted by a
slight second-order polynomial function. The function
can be expressed as
l ¼ 1549:9006 þ 0:0060  T þ ð5:2369  106 Þ  T 2 ,
(6)
where l is the wavelength of FBG and T the temperature
to be measured. There is a linear response when the
temperature to be measured is higher than 100 1C. The
function can be expressed as
l ¼ 1549:2677 þ 0:0097  T. (7)
4
The error of the slope value is 1.2330  10 and the
standard deviation of the fit is 0.0458. Profited from the
good demodulation system, a resolution of 1 1C is
obtained.
3.2. Farther experiments
In order to make the whole sensor simple, low cost
and effective, an LPG has been used as a linear filter for
interrogation [11]. The experimental setup is shown in
Fig. 8.
Sensor head
Second and third series of experiments have been
done with the LPG interrogation technology. In second
series of experiments, the output power of the BBS was
set at three different work points for the three sub-series
of experiments to explore the stability and repeatability
of the sensor system. The results are shown in Fig. 9.
In third series of experiments, the usual interferences
(such as heat convection in surroundings) are attached,
to explore the sensor system’s ability of anti-interfer-
ence. The results are shown in Fig. 10.
From Fig. 9, it is obvious that the sensor system has
good stability and repeatability. From Fig. 10, it is
certified that the sensor system has better anti-inter-
ference ability when the temperature to be measured is
LPG Coupler Sensor head
BBS
IMG
PD
500 600
DAC & Signal processing
Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup (II).
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Y. Zhan et al. / Optik 119 (2008) 535–539 539

Power1 be obtained by the sensor system. The experiment results

17.4 Power2 well agree with the theoretical analysis.
Power3
Relative intensity PD output

17.2 (all with the same BBS)

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4. Conclusion
In conclusion, a novel FBG sensor structure for
measurement of high temperature is studied. The sensor
is simply, low cost and easy to be implemented. A
dynamic range of 0–800 1C and a resolution of 1 1C can
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Yage Zhan was born in 1977, in China.
She received the B.S. degree in Physics
from the HeNan University in 2000, and
the M.S. degree in Optical Engineering
form Shanghai Institute of Optics and
Fine Mechanics, CAS, in 2002, respec-
tively. She is now working for her Ph.D.
Her research interests include fiber grat-
ing sensors and demodulation technolo-
gies for fiber grating sensors.