Fibercore Ltd at OSA Advanced Photonics, Colorado Springs

Our attendance at small specialist shows provides us with an opportunity to focus our attention on a technical level with experts in our marketplaces – and the Advanced Photonic Congress in Colorado Springs last week was no exception.

With the attendance of Engineers from Universities, Research Groups and R&D departments of major international companies, Dr Andy Gillooly and Ellen Landis were able to discuss the technical benefits and specifications of our fibers with scientists and engineers working on the latest projects. 

Fiber Bragg Gratings were a particular focus of the Meeting and Andy’s expertise in the field enabled him to discuss our photosensitive singlemode fibers for sensor applications, introducing our polyimide coated bend-insensitive fibers for the harsh environments of oil and gas sensing.  His extensive knowledge and experience in laser applications also enabled him to discuss our fibers in detail in this advancing technology.

Other topics covered by Ellen, using her extensive experience of the specialty optical fiber market, and Andy included erbium-doped fibers in EDFAs for telecommunications and various fibers for bio-photonics, as well as discussions around applications for our new HiBi Spun fiber.

For all those that came to our booth, it was a pleasure to discuss your application and our fibers with you and we will be in touch very shortly with the information that you require.  If you were unable to attend the meeting and would like to know more about how our fibers can help your project, email us at sales@fibercore.com and one of us will get in touch with you as quickly as we can.

Photosensitive Fibers & Fiber Bragg Gratings

As a result of a scientific accident whilst researching the nonlinear effect of intense laser light in optical fibers, a scientist call Kenneth Hill at the Communication Research Center accidently created an in-fiber reflection grating from localized photo-induced refractive index changes. This led to the development of photosensitive fibers and the birth of the fiber Bragg industry. Hill's discovery rapidly paved the way for the development of wavelength-selective reflectors based on Bragg's law, which became the fundamental principle behind the design of fiber Bragg gratings - the primary application of photosensitive fibers.

The demand for FBGs increased rapidly during the growth of the telecommunications industry, and new applications that arose during this time were a strong driver for research and development into FBGs. However the manufacturing capacity of these early devices limited the growth of the industry, and this led to the development of more powerful lasers, higher quality phase masks and optical fibers with greater photosensitivity so that fast FBG inscription speeds could be achieved.

As well as high photosensitivity, fibers used in these applications need to withstand the bend losses which occur when tight bends are formed with the fiber during their deployment, losses resulting from the mode field no longer guiding tightly within the center of the core. Fibercore's highly photosensitive range of specialty singlemode fibers meet both these requirements - increased Germania for enhanced photosensitivity and high NA for low bend-loss - the SM1500(4.2/xxx) fibers are especially suitable for these applications. Fibercore's PS range of intrinisically photosensitive fiber offers a high Germania content with a lower NA and does not require hydrogen loading to encourage absorption into the core.

To find out more, visit Nature Photonics (Nature Photonics/Vol 5/August 2011) and read Dr Andy Gillooly's article on 'Growing Gratings'. Andy is the Senior Sales Engineer at Fibercore Ltd and has a PhD in Fiber Bragg Gratings as well as an industrial background in FBGs and lasers.

OFS-21, 17th-18th May 2011, Ottawa Convention Centre

The OFS-21 Conference, combined with Photonics North, brought a good number of delegates to the Fibercore booth with a particularly strong turn out from Europe.

A wide range of technologies were discussed in the Technical Forums from Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensing techniques using photosensitive fibers such as our PS-range of fiber and our high germania fibers, scattering sensing methods, utilizing Rayleigh, Brillouin and Raman scattering, and polarization sensing techniques using both PM and SM fibers.

The rate of adoption of fiber optic sensors in industry has taken a slow but steady rise with a notable recent acceleration in the acceptance of such techniques for commercial use. As safety becomes a greater issue, companies become liable for any environmental damage and resources become more difficult and costly to extract, these sensor systems start to be viewed as a necessary requirement rather than just academic interest.

Acoustic, vibration, pressure and temperature sensors were all aimed at large industries, particularly the oil and gas, wind energy and security industries.

With OFS-22 based in Beijing, China, between 14th-19th October 2012, it will be exciting to see how some of these technologies have matured and we will hopefully get a strong turn out from the Asian market.