In this work, we report about our recent results concerning the fabrication of Long Period Grating (LPG) sensors in several optical fibers, through the Electric Arc Discharge (EAD) technique. In particular, the following silica fibers with both different dopants and geometrical structures are considered: standard Ge-doped, photosensitive B/Ge codoped, P-doped, pure-silica core with F-doped cladding, Panda type Polarization-maintaining, and Hollow core Photonic crystal fiber. An adaptive platform was developed and the appropriate “recipe” was identified for each fiber, in terms of both arc discharge parameters and setup arrangement, for manufacturing LPGs with strong and narrow attenuation bands, low insertion losses, and short length. As the fabricated devices have appealing features from the application point of view, the sensitivity characteristics towards changes in different external perturbations (i.e., surrounding refractive index, temperature, and strain) are investigated and compared, highlighting the effects of different fiber composition and structure.

A safe detection of hydrocarbons is a major concern in industrial and public environment, due to their high volatility and flammability. In this work, we report the development and characterization of an in-fiber sensor for the detection of aliphatic hydrocarbon gas operating at room temperature, focusing the attention on the butane (C4H10). A Long Period Grating (LPG) was used as optical transducer, integrated with a nano-scale high refractive index sensitive overlay of atactic Polystyrene (aPS). Both LPG and aPS thin film were carefully designed to work in mode transition, in order to enhance the final device sensitivity. Moreover, a practical single ended probe was developed by integrating a mirror on the fiber tip. The sensor was tested with butane vapor concentrations up to 1.0 vol%, obtaining a maximum sensitivity of -2.2 nm/vol%, and demonstrating the possibility to detect concentrations as low as one tenth of the Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) of 1.8 vol%.

This paper presents an experimental study of the sensitivity characteristics to the surrounding refractive index (SRI) in arc-induced long period gratings (LPGs), in order to outline their dependence over the fabrication parameters. Several LPGs were fabricated, with spectral features that are appealing for chemical sensing applications, e.g., negligible power losses, bands depth greater than 20 dB, and total length smaller than 35 mm. In addition, low spatial periods Λ, which are close to the limit of the arc-based fabrication technique, were selected in order to excite high-order cladding modes. In particular, the period was chosen in range 350-500 μm to focus attention on the same cladding modes for the gratings under investigation. Accordingly, a wide experimental analysis was then carried out to investigate the dependence of the sensitivity to SRI changes on the period in order to derive design criteria for LPG fabrication. In the wavelength range 1100-1700 nm and taking into consideration the attenuation bands related to the LP05 and LP06 cladding modes, an SRI sensitivity enhancement up to one order of magnitude can be achieved by proper selection of the grating period.

In this paper, we present a comparative experimental and theoretical study on gamma radiation sensitivity of Long Period Gratings (LPGs), fabricated by electric arc discharge technique, as monitored in three single mode optical fibers supplied by different manufacturers. A real-time measurement of LPGs’ wavelength shift was performed until a total dose of 35 kGy was reached, with average dose rate of 0.18 kGy/h, the irradiation being done at room temperature. In one case, a maximum radiation sensitivity of 1.34 nm/kGy was recorded for doses up to 0.5 kGy. Moreover, by combining experimental results with numerical simulations, it was found that changes occurred in the core refractive index of the irradiated optical fibers up to 2.5 ∙ 10⁻⁵. The increase of the core thermo-optic coefficient up to 1.5 ∙ 10⁻⁸/°C was observed as well.

Lipid droplets are lipid-storage organelles with a key role in lipid accumulation pathologies such as diabetes, obesity and atherosclerosis. Despite their important functions many aspects of lipid droplets biology are still unknown. This is partially due to the current use of exogenous labels to monitor their formation and remodelling by invasive imaging methods. Here, we apply stimulated Raman scattering microscopy to acquire images with high spatial resolution along with resolving capabilities of lipids and proteins and three-dimensional sectioning. Our images and data analysis demonstrate an increase in the number of large (>15μm²) lipid droplets in human adipocyte cells during differentiation process. In addition, spatially-resolved maps of lipids and proteins inside cells and three dimensional reconstructions of lipids at the initial and final steps of adipocyte differentiation are reported, too.

Recently, the fabrication of long-period gratings (LPGs) in hollow-core air-silica photonic bandgap fibers by means of pressure assisted electrode arc discharge (EAD) technique have been presented. The EAD procedure properly combined with air pressure inside fiber holes enables the localized modification of hole size and shape in both core and cladding region avoiding holes collapsing. LPGs are fabricated with a step-by-step approach by periodically repeated EAD treatment. In this paper, the role of pressure inside the fiber holes as well as the effect of the grating pitch on the transmitted spectra have been experimentally investigated to achieve the design criteria of novel hollow core devices. An appropriate perturbation of fiber structure (core and/or cladding) may change the field profile of the fiber modes and cause light coupling from the fundamental mode to higher order modes. Here, the experimental demonstration of LPG prototypes with different features exhibiting attenuation bands with depth up to 12 dB are reported. Finally, the resonant wavelength dependence on local temperature and strain changes are experimentally investigated. We believe that the fabrication of LPGs-based devices in hollow core optical fibers enable new functionalities hitherto not possible.