Study on Dependence of Polarization-Maintaining Photonic Crystal Fiber-Based Polarimetric Strain Sensor on Sensing Fiber Length

In this paper, we implemented a polarimetric strain sensor using a Sagnac birefringence interferometer composed of a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF). By changing the length of the PM-PCF employed as the sensor head of the proposed sensor, the length dependence of the strain sensitivity was investigated. With respect to 5.0-, 7.5-, and 10.0-cm-long PM-PCFs, strain measurements were done in a measurement range of $0{\sim}6m{\varepsilon}$, and strain sensitivities of ~2.04, ~1.92, and ${\sim}1.73pm/{\mu}{\varepsilon}$ were obtained, respectively. If an ideal PM-PCF with no length dependence of a modal birefringence is used for the proposed sensor, the strain sensitivity is independent of the length of the sensor head (PM-PCF). In the practical PM-PCF used in experiments, however, a shorter PM-PCF has a higher length dependence of the modal birefringence due to its imperfectness and nonuniformity of the internal structure, resulting in a higher length dependence of the strain sensitivity.

편광유지 광자결정 광섬유 기반 편광 간섭형 스트레인 센서의 센싱 광섬유 길이 의존성 연구