Novel optical-fiber structure as a tension sensor

The key idea of research in hybrid optical fibers is motivated by the demand of fibers, which could be used as a medium for telecommunication transmission and as an optical sensor at the same time. Every optical fiber sensor on the market has unappropriate properties for telecommunication transmission. And, on the other hand, the convenient fibers used for transmission are designed to be insensitive to the external influences. We have designed a fiber with refractive index profile which preserves the telecommunication properties of the single-mode fibers and at the same time it enables to use this fiber as a sensor on another wavelength. Principle of this sensor is based on redistribution of the optical power between individual guided modes. This article shows some results from experiments on hybrid fibers in sensoric regime. Telecommunication properties were verified by the reflectometric method. It has shown that the fiber has attenuation camparable with commonly used single-mode fibers.