Fiber optic hot-wire flowmeter based on a metallic coated hybrid long period grating/fiber Bragg grating structure

In this work an all-optical hot-wire flowmeter based on a silver coated fiber combining a long period grating and a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) structure is proposed. Light from a pump laser at 1480  nm propagating down the fiber is coupled by the long period grating into the fiber cladding and is absorbed by the silver coating deposited on the fiber surface over the Bragg grating structure. This absorption acts like a hot wire raising the fiber temperature locally, which is effectively detected by the FBG resonance shift. The temperature increase depends on the flow speed of the surrounding air, which has the effect of cooling the fiber. It is demonstrated that the Bragg wavelength shift can be related to the flow speed. A flow speed resolution of 0.08  m/s is achieved using this new configuration.