No abstract

Single microchannel high-temperature fiber sensors were fabricated by drilling a microchannel across the fiber core near the end of the common single-mode fiber using femtosecond laser-induced water breakdown. Then the microchannel was annealed by the arc discharge to smooth its inwall. The two sides of microchannel and the end surface of the fiber constitute three reflective mirrors, which form a three-wave Fabry-Pérot interferometer (FPI). The fabricated FPI can be used as a high-temperature sensor in harsh environments due to its large temperature range (up to 1000°C), high linearity, miniaturized size, and perfect mechanical property.

No abstract

Compared with the other hydrogen sensors, optical fiber hydrogen sensors based on thin films exhibits inherent safety, small volume, immunity to electromagnetic interference, and distributed remote sensing capability, but slower response characteristics. To improve response and recovery rate of the sensors, a novel reflection-type optical fiber hydrogen gas sensor with a 10 nm palladium and yttrium alloy thin film is fabricated. The alloy thin film shows a good hydrogen sensing property for hydrogen-containing atmosphere and a complete restorability for dry air at room temperature. The variation in response value of the sensor linearly increases with increased natural logarithm of hydrogen concentration (ln[H(2)]). The shortest response time and recovery response time to 4% hydrogen are 6 and 8 s, respectively. The hydrogen sensors based on Pd(0.91)Y(0.09) alloy ultrathin film have potential applications in hydrogen detection and measurement.

This paper presents a high sensitivity gas pressure sensor with benzyl-dimethylketal (BDK)-doped polymer optical fiber Bragg grating (POFBG), whose sensitivity is up to 8.12 pm/kPa and 12.12 pm/kPa in positive and negative pressure atmosphere, respectively. The high sensitivity can be explained by its porous chemical structure. The stability and response behavior under air pressure atmosphere has also been investigated. The new understanding of the air pressure response principle and sensitivity difference for the presented sensor can be a worthy reference.

To detect hydrogen gas leakage rapidly, many types of hydrogen sensors containing palladium alloy film have been proposed and fabricated to date. However, the mechanisms and factors that determine the response rate of such hydrogen sensor have not been established theoretically. The manners in which response time is forecasted and sensitive film is designed are key issues in developing hydrogen sensors with nanometer film. In this paper, a unilateral diffusion model of hydrogen atoms in Pd alloy based on Fick’s second law is proposed to describe the Pd–H reaction process. Model simulation shows that the hydrogen sensor response time with Pd alloy film is dominated by two factors (film thickness and hydrogen diffusion coefficient). Finally, a series of response rate experiments with varying thicknesses of Pd–Y (yttrium) alloy film are implemented to verify model validity. Our proposed model can help researchers in the precise optimization of film thickness to realize a simultaneously speedy and sensitive hydrogen sensor. This study also aids in evaluating the influence of manufacturing errors on performances and comparing the performances of sensors with different thicknesses.

The change of spindle temperature field is an important factor which influences machining precision. Many methods of spindle temperature field measurement have been proposed. However, most of the methods are based on the electric temperature sensors. There exist some defects (e.g., anti-interference, multiplexing, and stability capacity are poor). To increase the temperature sensitivity and reduce strain sensitivity of the bare Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensor, a cassette packaged FBG sensor is proposed to measure spindle temperature field. The temperature characteristics of the packaged FBG sensor are studied by comparative experiment with traditional thermal resistor sensor. The experimental results show that the packaged FBG sensor has the same capacity of temperature measurement with the thermal resistor sensor but with more remarkable antiinterference. In the further measurement experiment of the temperature field, a spindle nonuniform temperature field is acquired by the calibrated FBG sensors. It indicates that the packaged FBG sensor can be used to measure the temperature field for the spindle of machine tool.

A novel single longitudinal mode (SLM) Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) with cascaded ring (CR) Fabry-Pérot resonator is proposed and demonstrated. By optimizing the CR length of the single mode fiber cavity at 100 m (or 50 m) and 10 m, stable SLM operation is obtained. Therefore, the threshold power is lower and linewidth is narrower than that of previously reported BFL with 10 m (or 20 m) single cavity. Additionally, there is no additional attenuation except intrinsic loss of optical devices. The measured linewidth with 60 dB (or 45 dB) improved value of side mode suppression ratio is 0.41 kHz (or 3.23 kHz), which is three (or two) orders of magnitude than that of the pump. Using a stabilizing feedback loop based on autotracking technique with polarization maintaining fiber-based optical delay line, the SLM BFL exhibits good performance with 6% power fluctuation in 1 h. Index Terms-Cascaded ring Fabry-Pérot resonator, Brillouin fiber laser (BFL), single longitudinal mode (SLM), narrow linewidth.