Discriminative strain and temperature sensing using a ring-hyperbolic tangent fiber sensor.

Area of Science:

• Optical Fiber Sensing
• Photonics and Wave Phenomena
• Materials Science

Background:

• Brillouin fiber sensors offer high sensitivity and discriminative capabilities for multiparameter measurements.
• Simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain is crucial for various advanced applications.
• Existing Brillouin sensing systems face challenges in achieving high accuracy and discrimination.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and numerically investigate a novel ring core fiber for simultaneous temperature and strain measurement.
• To explore the potential of the ring hyperbolic tangent (R-HTAN) fiber in enhancing Brillouin scattering sensing.
• To evaluate the discriminative sensing performance of the R-HTAN fiber for temperature and strain.

Main Methods:

• Numerical investigation of a novel ring hyperbolic tangent (R-HTAN) fiber.
• Utilizing stimulated Brillouin scattering for sensing applications.
• Analyzing Brillouin gain spectrum characteristics and mode interactions via numerical modal simulations.

Main Results:

• The designed R-HTAN fiber exhibits multiple widely spaced, high-gain Brillouin peaks due to strong optical-acoustic mode interaction.
• The R-HTAN fiber enables highly discriminative sensing of temperature and strain, surpassing reported literature values.
• Specific sensing coefficients (C_T, C_ε) and measurement errors (δT, δε) were quantified for straight and graded R-HTAN fibers.

Conclusions:

• The proposed R-HTAN fiber is a promising candidate for next-generation Brillouin sensing systems.
• The fiber design facilitates accurate and simultaneous discrimination of temperature and strain.
• Further research can leverage this novel fiber for advanced sensing applications requiring high precision.