The effect of humidity on annealing of poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) based microstructured polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings (mPOFBGs) and the resulting humidity responsivity are investigated. Typically annealing of PMMA POFs is done in an oven without humidity control around 80°C and therefore at low humidity. We demonstrate that annealing at high humidity and high temperature improves the performances of mPOFBGs in terms of stability and sensitivity to humidity. PMMA POFBGs that are not annealed or annealed at low humidity level will have a low and highly temperature dependent sensitivity and a high hysteresis in the humidity response, in particular when operated at high temperature. PMMA mPOFBGs annealed at high humidity show higher and more linear humidity sensitivity with negligible hysteresis. We also report how annealing at high humidity can blue-shift the FBG wavelength more than 230 nm without loss in the grating strength.

In the quest of finding the ideal polymer optical fiber (POF) for Bragg grating sensing, we have fabricated and characterized an endlessly single mode microstructured POF (mPOF). This fiber is made from cyclo-olefin homopolymer Zeonex grade 480R which has a very high glass transition temperature of 138 °C and is humidity insensitive. It represents a significant improvement with respect to the also humidity insensitive Topas core fibers, in that Zeonex fibers are easier to manufacture, has better transmittance, higher sensitivity to temperature and better mechanical stability at high temperature. Furthermore, Zeonex has very good compatibility with PMMA in terms of dilatation coefficients for co-drawing applications. The Zeonex mPOF has a core and cladding diameter of 8.8 µm and 150 µm, respectively, with a hole to pitch ratio of 0.4 and a minimum propagation loss of 2.34 ± 0.39 dB/m at 690.78 nm. We have also inscribed and characterized fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) in Zeonex mPOFs in the low loss 850 nm spectral band.

Here we present the fabrication of a solid-core microstructured polymer optical fiber (mPOF) made of polycarbonate (PC), and report the first experimental demonstration of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) written in a PC optical fiber. The PC used in this work has a glass transition temperature of 145°C. We also characterize the mPOF optically and mechanically, and further test the sensitivity of the PC FBG to strain and temperature. We demonstrate that the PC FBG can bear temperatures as high as 125°C without malfunctioning. In contrast, polymethyl methacrylate-based FBG technology is generally limited to temperatures below 90°C.

We have fabricated the first single-mode step-index and humidity insensitive polymer optical fiber operating in the 850 nm wavelength ranges. The step-index preform is fabricated using injection molding, which is an efficient method for cost effective, flexible and fast preparation of the fiber preform. The fabricated single-mode step-index (SI) polymer optical fiber (POF) has a 4.8µm core made from TOPAS grade 5013S-04 with a glass transition temperature of 134°C and a 150 µm cladding made from ZEONEX grade 480R with a glass transition temperature of 138°C. The key advantages of the proposed SIPOF are low water absorption, high operating temperature and chemical inertness to acids and bases and many polar solvents as compared to the conventional poly-methyl-methacrylate (PMMA) and polystyrene based POFs. In addition, the fiber Bragg grating writing time is short compared to microstructured POFs.

We report the fabrication and characterization of a polycarbonate (PC) microstructured polymer optical fiber (mPOF) Bragg grating (FBG) humidity sensor that can operate beyond 100°C. The PC preform, from which the fiber was drawn, was produced using an improved casting approach to reduce the attenuation of the fiber. The fiber loss was found reduced by a factor of two compared to the latest reported PC mPOF [20], holding the low loss record in PC based fibers. PC mPOFBG was characterized to humidity and temperature, and a relative humidity (RH) sensitivity of 7.31± 0.13 pm/% RH in the range 10-90% RH at 100°C and a temperature sensitivity of 25.86±0.63 pm/°C in the range 20-100 °C at 90% RH were measured.

We present a fast-scanning Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) in combination with high-repetition-rate mid-infrared supercontinuum sources, covering a wavelength range of 2–10.5 µm. We demonstrate the performance of the spectrometer for trace gas detection and compare various detection methods: baseband detection with a single photodetector, baseband balanced detection, and synchronous demodulation at the repetition rate of the supercontinuum source. The FTS uses off-the-shelf optical components and provides a minimum spectral resolution of 750 MHz. It achieves a noise equivalent absorption sensitivity of ∼10⁻⁶ cm⁻¹ Hz^−1/2 per spectral element, by using a 31.2 m multipass absorption cell.