Bragg fiber laser sensor

A tunable erbium fiber laser which utilizes a broadband mirror and an intracore Bragg grating reflector in a side-pump configuration is designed and developed. This arrangement is used as a laser sensor which greatly enhances the performance of a recently developed wavelength demodulation system by University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. Sensor design parameters for optimal performance in terms of the fiber laser geometry, doped fiber length, and the required pump energies are presented. Laser tuning with temperature has been achieved and shows much improvement in the SNR with respect to the previous techniques, i.e., interrogation of the Bragg grating sensor with a broadband source.