The objective of this thesis was to develop applications of monolithic fiber devices and actively controlled fibers. A special twin-core fiber known as a ‘Gemini’ fiber was used to construct equal arm-length fiber interferometers, impervious to temperature and mechanical perturbations. A broadband add/drop multiplexer was constructed by inscribing fiber Bragg gratings in the arms of a Gemini Mach-Zehnder interferometer. A broadband interferometric nanosecond switch was constructed from a micro-structured Gemini fiber with incorporated metal electrodes. Additionally, a Michelson fiber interferometer was built from an asymmetric twin-core fiber and used as a high-temperature sensor. While the device could be readily used to measure temperatures below 300 °C, an annealing process was required to extend the range up to 700 °C. The work included development, construction and evaluation of the components along with numerical simulations to estimate their behaviors and to understand the underlying processes. The thesis also explored the use of electrically controlled fibers for filtering in the microwave domain. An ultra-narrow phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating inscribed in a fiber with internal electrodes was used as a scanning filter to measure modulation frequencies applied to an optical carrier. A similar grating was used inside a dual-wavelength fiber laser cavity, to generated tunable microwave beat frequencies. The studied monolithic fiber interferometers and actively controlled fibers provide excellent building blocks in such varied field as in microwave photonics, telecommunications, sensors, and high-speed switching, and will allow for further applications in the future. / Syftet med denna avhandling var att utveckla tillämpningar av monolitiska fiber komponenter samt aktivt kontrollerbara fiber. En speciell tvillingkärnefiber, även kallad ’Geminifiber’ användes för att konstruera fiber interferometrar med identisk armlängd som ej påverkas av termiska och mekaniska variationer. En bredbanding utbytarmultiplexor konstruerades genom att skriva in fiber Bragg gitter inuti grenarna på en Gemini Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Geminifibrer med interna metallelektroder användes för att konstruera en bredbandig nanosekundsnabb interferometrisk fiberomkopplare. Därtill användes en tvillingkärnefiber som en hög-temperatursensor. Även om komponenten direkt kan användas upp till 300 °C, måste den värmebehandlas för att kunna användas upp till 700 °C. Arbetet har innefattat utveckling, konstruktion och utvärdering av komponenterna parallellt med numeriska simuleringar för att analysera deras beteenden samt få insikt om de underliggande fysikaliska processerna. Avhandlingen behandlar även tillämpningar av en elektriskt styrbar fiber för att filtrera radiofrekvenser. Ett ultrasmalt fasskiftat fiber Bragg gitter skrevs in i en fiber med interna elektroder och användes som ett svepande filter för att mäta modulationsfrekvensen på en optisk bärfrekvens. Ett liknande gitter användes inuti en laserkavitet för att generera två olika våglängder samtidigt. Dessa två våglängder användes sedan för att generera en svävningsfrekvens i mikrovågsbandet. De undersökta monolitiska fiberinterferometrarna och de aktivt styrbara fibrerna erbjuder en utmärkt byggsten inom så pass skiljda områden som Mikrovågsfotonik, Telekommunikation, Sensorer samt Höghastighets-omkopplare och bör kunna användas inom många olika tillämpningar i framtiden. / <p>QC 20130226</p>

Polymer waveguides present a potentially low cost alternative to electronics in communication systems. Polymers offer relatively straightforward and economical fabrication when compared to conventional materials. In this study, a fabrication process for Bragg gratings in polymer waveguides was developed. Waveguides were designed using finite-element analysis, patterned via e-beam lithography, and a detailed fabrication method was developed. Surface-Plasmon Resonance (SPR) is a widely accepted method for biological and chemical sensing. Measurement of bulk refractive index changes and specific surface binding is a crucial part in any biosensing. Design and fabrication of a novel self-referencing SPR sensor is described and its functionality is tested.

No description available.

This thesis concerns with the development of a dual-parameter sensor based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and a packaging design for high pressure sensing in harsh environment. This thesis starts by introducing a novel design of a partially coated FBG, using a metallic insert and a thermal curing epoxy. An analytical opto-mechanical model, based on couple mode theory, was developed and presented. The experimental and modelling result of the optical response of the partially coated FBG were compared and shown to be in excellent agreement. The experiments were executed on a custom-built fiber optic calibration station. The coated FBG sensor has a temperature sensitivity of 26.9 ± 0.3 pm/°C, which is 2.7 times higher than a bare fiber; and a force sensitivity of 0.104 nm/N, which is 13 times smaller than a bare fiber. The zero reference of the sensor has a drift of a maximum of 70 pm but the sensor is shown to settle within ±5 pm after 3 thermal cycles and 10 tensile loading cycles. A low profile packaging design is presented for a maximum pressure of 20.68 MPa (3000 psi) for harsh environment applications. A detailed study with FEM analysis revealed the optimal design for the package’s sleeve thickness is 0.5 mm. The temperature sensitivity is in close agreement with the unpackaged coated sensor with 10% difference. Compared to the modelling, the equivalent force sensitivity is 27% lower due to prototype dimensional uncertainties and modelling uncertainties with the material properties. The lack of pre-tension of the FBG sensor in the package also attributed to lower force sensitivity at pressure level lower than 4.13 MPa (600 psi).

Fibre-optic sensing techniques for application in polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEMFC) are presented in this thesis. Temperature, relative humidity (RH) and air-water two-phase flow sensors are developed and demonstrated based on optical fibre Bragg gratings (FBG). Bragg gratings offer the following characteristics that warrant their development for application in PEMFCs: small size, environmental compatibility and the possibility of multiplexed multi-parameter sensing. Contributions of this work are in novel sensor development and implementation strategies. Important installation design considerations include the sensor proximity to the catalyst layer, sensor strain relief and minimal bending of the fibre. With these considerations, the dynamic and steady-state performance of FBG temperature sensors distributed throughout the flow-field of a single cell PEMFC was validated with a co-located micro-thermocouple. In the development of FBGs for in situ measurement of relative humidity, a polyimide-coated FBG based RH sensor is presented with significantly improved response time and sensitivity over previously reported designs. The RH inside a PEMFC under transient operating conditions is monitored. Step increases in current induce significantly larger increases in RH near the outlet than near the inlet of the cell, and associated transients within the fuel cell are found on a time scale approaching the sensor response time. Finally, to complete the suite of FBG sensors for water management in PEMFCs, an evanescent field based FBG sensor embedded in a microchannel for the measurement of two-phase flow dynamics is presented. Using high speed video for validation, it is established that the novel sensor enables the measurement of droplet average velocity and size in flow regimes representative of an operating fuel cell. / Graduate

Advanced composite materials are becoming increasingly more valuable in a plethora of engineering applications due to properties such as tailorability, low specific strength and stiffness and resistance to fatigue and corrosion. Compared to more traditional metallic and ceramic materials, advanced composites such as carbon, aramid or glass reinforced plastic are relatively new and still require research to optimize their capabilities. Three areas that composites stand to benefit from improvement are processing, damage detection and life prediction. Fiber optic sensors and piezoelectric transducers show great potential for advances in these areas. This dissertation presents the research performed on improving the efficiency of advanced composite materials through the use of embedded fiber optic sensors and surface mounted piezoelectric transducers. Embedded fiber optic sensors are used to detect the presence of resin during the injection stage of resin transfer molding, monitor the degree of cure and predict the remaining useful life while in service. A sophisticated resin transfer molding apparatus was developed with the ability of embedding fiber optics into the composite and a glass viewing window so that resin flow sensors could be verified visually. A novel technique for embedding optical fiber into both 2- and 3-D structures was developed. A theoretical model to predict the remaining useful life was developed and a systematic test program was conducted to verify this model. A network of piezoelectric transducers was bonded to a composite panel in order to develop a structural health monitoring algorithm capable of detecting and locating damage in a composite structure. A network configuration was introduced that allows for a modular expansion of the system to accommodate larger structures and an algorithm based on damage progression history was developed to implement the network. The details and results of this research are contained in four manuscripts that are included in Appendices A-D while the body of the dissertation provides background information and a summary of the results. / Graduate

Theoretical and experimental studies of real-time interrogation of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors based on chirped pulse compression with increased interrogation resolution and signal-to-noise ratio are presented. Two interrogation systems are proposed in this thesis. In the first interrogation system, a linearly chirped FBG (LCFBG) is employed as the sensing element. By incorporating the LCFBG in an optical interferometer as the sensor encoding system, employing wavelength-to-time mapping and chirped pulse compression technique, the correlation of output microwave waveform with a chirped reference waveform would provide an interrogation result with high speed and high resolution. The proposed system can provide an interrogation resolution as high as 0.25 μ at a speed of 48.6 MHz. The second interrogation system is designed to achieve simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature. In this system, a high-birefringence LCFBG (Hi-Bi LCFBG) is employed as a sensing element.

Modeling of wave scattering from grating couplers has become increasingly important due to extensive recent research interest in the problem of plasmonic resonance. Computational algorithms which are specially used to model the problem of scattering from the grating surfaces suffer from several drawbacks such as accuracy, computational efficiency, and generality. To address the challenges of the previous methods, this work presents a novel hybrid Finite Element-Boundary Integral Method (FE-BIM) solution to the problem of scattering from grating surfaces consisting of finite or infinite array of two-dimensional cavities and holes in an infinite metallic walls covered with a stratified dielectric layer. To solve the scattering problem from finite number of cavities or holes engraved in a perfectly conducting screen (PEC), the solution region is divided into interior regions containing the cavities or holes and the region exterior to them. The finite element formulation is applied inside the interior region to derive a linear system of equations associated with nodal field values. Using two-boundary formulation, the surface integral equation employing free-space Green's function is then applied at \emph{only} the opening of the cavities or holes to truncate the computational domain and to connect the matrix subsystem generated from each cavity or hole. The hybrid FE-BIM method is extended to solve the scattering problem from an infinite array of cavities or holes in a PEC screen by deriving the quasi-periodic Green's function. In the scattering problem from an infinite array of cavities, the finite element formulation is first used inside a single cavity in the unit-cell. Next, the surface integral equation employing the quasi-periodic Green's function is applied at the opening of \emph{only} a single cavity as a boundary constraint to truncate the computational domain. Effect of the infinite array of cavities is incorporated into the system of the nodal equations by the quasi-periodic Green's function. Finally, the method based on the hybrid FE-BIM is developed to solve the scattering problem from grating surfaces covered with a stratified dielectric layer. In this method, the surface integral equation employing grounded dielectric slab Green's function is applied at the opening of the cavities or holes inside the dielectric coating to truncate the solution region efficiently. An accurate algorithm is presented to derive the grounded dielectric slab Green's function in spatial domain incorporating the effects of the surface-waves and leaky-waves excited and propagated inside the dielectric slab. Numerical examples of near and far field calculations for finite or infinite array of cavities or holes are presented to validate accuracy, versatility, and efficiency of the algorithm presented in this thesis.

A terahertz photoconductive source structure with nano-grating electrodes is proposed. The resonance modes of the one-dimensional nano-grating and their affect the optical power absorption are studied. In addition, an approach for optimal design of the grating to maximize the photocurrent for different proposed DC biases, is presented. The dependence of the photocurrent on physical parameters of photomixer are analyzed. A fast analysis method for a new terahertz waveguide for photo-mixing is proposed. The wave-guiding mixer structure is a modified parallel plate waveguide (PPWG) in which the top plate is replaced by a periodic array of sub-wavelength nano-slits. The substrate of the PPWG is made of a fast photoconductive material in which laser photomixing/absorption occurs. The characteristic equation of the modified PPWG when used as a THz waveguide is derived analytically, and its guided modes are studied in details over THz range of frequencies. The accuracy of the analytical results are verified by comparison with full-wave numerical simulations. The criteria for choosing the suitable mode for photomixing application are also discussed. Finally, based on dyadic Green’s function representation, a systematic approach is provided for calculating the amplitude of the guided modes that are excited by an arbitrary photocurrent.

The aim of this project was to develop a passive optical compensating arrangement that would allow the formation and continued stability of interference patterns over a long timescale and also to investigate optical wave scattering in thick gratings at extreme angles of scattering. A novel passive arrangement based on a Sagnac interferometer is described that produces interference patterns more stable than those produced by a conventional arrangement. An analysis of the arrangement is presented that shows it to be an order of magnitude more stable than an equivalent conventional approach. The excellent fringe stability allowed holographic gratings with small periods (~ 0.5 μm) to be written in photorefractive lithium niobate with low intensity writing fields (~mW/cm2) produced by a He:Ne laser, despite long grating fabrication times (~ 1000 s). This was possible because the optical arrangement compensated for phase shifts introduced by translational and rotational mirror motion caused by environmental perturbations. It was shown that the rapid introduction of a phase shift in one of the writing fields can change the direction of energy flow in the two-wave mixing process. It was found that the improvement in stability of the modified Sagnac arrangement over a conventional interferometer decreased when the crossing angle was increased and that the point about which the mirrors are rotated greatly affects the stability of the arrangement. For a crossing angle of 12 degrees, the modified Sagnac arrangement is more than twice as stable when the mirrors are rotated about their midpoints, rather than their endpoints. Investigations into scattering in the extremely asymmetrical scattering (EAS) geometry were undertaken by scattering light from a 532nm Nd:YAG laser off gratings written in photorefractive barium titanate and lithium niobate. Despite the difficulties posed by background noise, there was very good agreement between the observed scattered field and that predicted by a previously established theoretical model. Thus, this work represents the first experimental observation of EAS in the optical part of the spectrum.