Friday 13 January 2012

Photonics West 2012 Product Presentation by Dr Andy Gillooly: SM-P Polyimide Coated SM Fibers

New Polyimide Coated Singlemode Fiber for Embedded and High Temperature Applications


Optical fiber sensors have been widely adopted into a range of sensing technologies including discrete and continuous temperature, pressure and strain sensors often used in relatively benign environments. Typically these sensors have been used in pipeline monitoring, perimeter monitoring, heat detection and structural monitoring systems, all of which operate within the -45 degrees C to +85 degrees C temperature range of a standard optical fiber.


As industries push their sensing requirements into the high temperature environments in oil wells and nuclear reactors or into the tight coil requirements for hydrophones and seismic sensing geophones, optical fibers start to offer major technical benefits over electronic sensors. Fibers can be designed to tolerature the high temperatures and pressures found in oil wells, they can be radiation tolerant for nuclear environments, are immune to the high levels of electro-magnetic interference (EMI) associated with large industrial machinery and they do not require electrical power at the sensing element - particularly important for subsea reliability.


Extracting oil and gas from wells has become increasingly difficult and fiber sensors are being used more and more to enhance oil recover. The downhole environment of this industry is extremely aggressive with temperatures exceeding 300 degrees C and, whilst a high temperature acrylate coating can be used for applications working at around 150 degrees C, demand a fiber with a high-performance coating.


Fibercore's high NA, bend-insensitive specialty singlemode fibers are already widely used in sensor application all over the world and we have built on this technology to offer a new range of polyimide coated, bend-insensitive singlemode fiber, specifically designed for the seismic sensors and distributed sensors used in these highly challenging environments of the oil and gas explorations industries and other similar industries. Using the polyimide coating of our HB-P polarization maintaining fibers, these singlemode fibers offer the same bend insensitivity and photosensitivity of our high NA SM fibers with the added advantage of being able to withstand short-term temperatures as high as 400 degrees C (and 300 degrees C continuous).


Our first Product Presentation at this year's Photonics West Exhibition in San Francisco will be showcasing this new range of fibers, so if you are attending the show and want to know more, then come along to North Hall D, Demo Area 2, at 11.30am on Tuesday 24th January where Dr Andy Gillooly will introduce the fibers to you. Alternatively, visit our website, http://www.fibercore.com/, to obtain details and download our white paper.

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