Temperature independent polarisation maintaining fibre for sensing and interferometry

Andrew Michie; John Canning; Whayne Padden; Katja Lyytikainen; Mattias Aslund; Justin Digweed

doi:10.1117/12.623258

23 May 2005 Temperature independent polarisation maintaining fibre for sensing and interferometry

Andrew Michie, John Canning, Whayne Padden, Katja Lyytikainen, Mattias Aslund, Justin Digweed

Proceedings Volume 5855, 17th International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors; (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.623258
Event: 17th International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors, 2005, Bruges, Belgium

Abstract

Polarisation maintaining fibres used for sensing and interferometry typically have high birefringence [1-3] and are known as HiBi fibres. Since photonic crystal fibre (PCF) was first reported [4,5], HiBi PCFs with birefringence comparable to and greater than conventional highly stressed bow-tie and PANDA fibre have been demonstrated [6-10]. Very high levels of form birefringence in PCFs have been possible due to the flexibility in geometry and the high refractive index contrast offered by making a fibre with an air silica structure (ASS). In this paper we present experimental results that show effective temperature independent, or athermal, birefringence in a HiBi-PCF [11-14]. This is expected to be beneficial for a number of sensing and interferometric applications. For example, fibre optic gyroscopes (FOG) generally use very long lengths of coiled HiBi fibre in a Sagnac configuration to attain suitable sensitivity. FOG cost is, however, a significant driving factor in limiting the expansion of FOGs into new lower cost applications. FOG performance has been primarily limited by environmental temperature sensitivity [15,16] and stabilisation routes, using temperature-stabilised packaging, add too much to their cost. The use of a passive, temperature insensitive HiBi-PCF is a much lower cost alternative that does not require active stabilisation, thereby potentially overcoming these limitations and potentially opening up a new low cost market for FOG technology whilst retaining high performance.

Citation Download Citation

Andrew Michie, John Canning, Whayne Padden, Katja Lyytikainen, Mattias Aslund, and Justin Digweed "Temperature independent polarisation maintaining fibre for sensing and interferometry", Proc. SPIE 5855, 17th International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors, (23 May 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.623258

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