
Comparative assessment of erbium fiber ring lasers and reflective SOA linear lasers for fiber Bragg grating dynamic strain sensing
Author(s) -
Heming Wei,
Sridhar Krishnaswamy
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
applied optics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 0003-6935
DOI - 10.1364/ao.56.003867
Subject(s) - fiber bragg grating , materials science , optics , fiber laser , laser , polarization maintaining optical fiber , optical amplifier , erbium , ring laser , phosfos , optical fiber , optoelectronics , fiber optic sensor , dispersion shifted fiber , physics
Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) dynamic strain sensors using both an erbium-based fiber ring laser configuration and a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA)-based linear laser configuration are investigated theoretically and experimentally. Fiber laser models are first presented to analyze the output characteristics of both fiber laser configurations when the FBG sensor is subjected to dynamic strains at high frequencies. Due to differences in the transition times of erbium and the semiconductor (InP/InGaAsP), erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)- and RSOA-based fiber lasers exhibit different responses and regimes of stability when the FBG is subjected to dynamic strains. The responses of both systems are experimentally verified using an adaptive photorefractive two-wave mixing (TWM) spectral demodulation technique. The experimental results show that the RSOA-FBG fiber linear cavity laser is stable and can stably respond to dynamic strains at high frequencies. An example application using a multiplexed TWM interferometer to demodulate multiple FBG sensors is also discussed.