Point-by-point inscribed sapphire parallel fiber Bragg gratings in a fully multimode system for multiplexed high-temperature sensing.

We study the point-by-point inscription of sapphire parallel fiber Bragg gratings (sapphire pFBGs) in a fully multimode system. A parallel FBG is shown to be critical in enabling detectable and reliable high-order grating signals. The impacts of modal volume, spatial coherence, and grating location on reflectivity are examined.

Heat-induced drift reduction of time of flight in fused quartz acoustic waveguides via annealing process.

High temperature structural acoustic sensors play an important role in many applications. Fused quartz waveguide is a popular choice due to its resistance to harsh environments and its convenience of modification. However, time of flight between pulse and echo, which is widely used in these sensors, tends to encounter drifts in fast temperature changing process even after temperature returns to initial value.

Powder-in-Tube Reactive Molten-Core Fabrication of Glass-Clad BaO-TiO-SiO Glass-Ceramic Fibers.

In this paper we report the fabrication of glass-clad BaO-TiO-SiO (BTS) glass-ceramic fibers by powder-in-tube reactive molten-core drawing and successive isothermal heat treatment. Upon drawing, the inserted raw powder materials in the fused silica tubing melt and react with the fused silica tubing (housing tubing) via dissolution and diffusion interactions. During the drawing process, the fused silica tubing not only serves as a reactive crucible, but also as a fiber cladding layer.

Fully integrated fused quartz acoustic horns for structural health monitoring.

Non-destructive acoustic structural sensing is an imperative technology, applicable to many different fields such as aerospace and civil engineering. To maintain a high sensitivity or to mitigate acoustic loss, it is important to increase the signal-to-noise ratio by improving coupling efficiency from acoustic sources to the object under test, such as an acoustic waveguide. Here, a fully integrated fused quartz horn design is combined with a fused quartz acoustic waveguide.

Mechanical properties of bioactive glasses, ceramics, glass-ceramics and composites: State-of-the-art review and future challenges.

The repair and restoration of bone defects in orthopaedic and dental surgery remains a major challenge despite advances in surgical procedures and post-operative treatments. Bioactive glasses, ceramics, glass-ceramics and composites show considerable potential for such applications as they can promote bone tissue regeneration. This paper presents an overview of the mechanical properties of various bioactive materials, which have the potential for bone regeneration.

Application of Sapphire-Fiber-Bragg-Grating-Based Multi-Point Temperature Sensor in Boilers at a Commercial Power Plant.

Readily available temperature sensing in boilers is necessary to improve efficiencies, minimize downtime, and reduce toxic emissions for a power plant. The current techniques are typically deployed as a single-point measurement and are primarily used for detection and prevention of catastrophic events due to the harsh environment. In this work, a multi-point temperature sensor based on wavelength-multiplexed sapphire fiber Bragg gratings (SFBGs) were fabricated via the point-by-point method with a femtosecond laser.

Acoustic modal analysis of unique fused-silica fibers for passive non-destructive structural monitoring.

The goal of non-destructive acoustic sensing is to passively monitor innate structural parameters such as temperature, strain, and pressure. Intended for use in harsh structural environments, a distributed acoustic sensing system has been created using a single mode, radiation hardened, fused-silica core rod and a high-resolution acoustic sensor. This study aims to enhance the capabilities of the acoustic sensor by manipulating the fused-silica core rod, geometrically, to induce and control additional acoustic reflections.

Fiber Bragg grating fabricated in micro-single-crystal sapphire fiber.

This Letter introduces a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) in a micro-single-crystal sapphire fiber (micro-SFBG) for sensing applications in high-temperature and harsh environments. The FBG was fabricated by a point-by-point method via an IR-femtosecond laser in a large-diameter sapphire fiber that was then wet-hot acid etched to achieve microfiber size, which culminated in fabricating and characterizing a 9.6 μm diameter micro-SFBG.

Mechanically switchable polymer fibers for sensing in biological conditions.

The area of in vivo sensing using optical fibers commonly uses materials such as silica and polymethyl methacrylate, both of which possess much higher modulus than human tissue. The mechanical mismatch between materials and living tissue has been seen to cause higher levels of glial encapsulation, scarring, and inflammation, leading to failure of the implanted medical device. We present the use of a fiber made from polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) for use as an implantable sensor as it is an easy to work with functionalized polymer that undergoes a transition from rigid to soft when introduced to water.

Sapphire-fiber-based distributed high-temperature sensing system.

We present, for the first time to our knowledge, a sapphire-fiber-based distributed high-temperature sensing system based on a Raman distributed sensing technique. High peak power laser pulses at 532 nm were coupled into the sapphire fiber to generate the Raman signal. The returned Raman Stokes and anti-Stokes signals were measured in the time domain to determine the temperature distribution along the fiber.

Review and the state of the art: Sol-gel and melt quenched bioactive glasses for tissue engineering.

Biomaterial development is currently the most active research area in the field of biomedical engineering. The bioglasses possess immense potential for being the ideal biomaterials due to their high adaptiveness to the biological environment as well as tunable properties. Bioglasses like 45S5 has shown great clinical success over the past 10 years.

Temperature dependence of sapphire fiber Raman scattering.

Anti-Stokes Raman scattering in sapphire fiber has been observed for the first time. Temperature dependence of Raman peaks' intensity, frequency shift, and linewidth were also measured. Three anti-Stokes Raman peaks were observed at temperatures higher than 300°C in a 0.

Magnetic sensing with ferrofluid and fiber optic connectors.

A simple, cost effective and sensitive fiber optic magnetic sensor fabricated with ferrofluid and commercially available fiber optic components is described in this paper. The system uses a ferrofluid infiltrated extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer (EFPI) interrogated with an infrared wavelength spectrometer to measure magnetic flux density. The entire sensing system was developed with commercially available components so it can be easily and economically reproduced in large quantities.

A review of bioactive glasses: Their structure, properties, fabrication and apatite formation.

Bioactive glass and glass-ceramics are used in bone repair applications and are being developed for tissue engineering applications. Bioactive glasses/Bioglass are very attractive materials for producing scaffolds devoted to bone regeneration due to their versatile properties, which can be properly designed depending on their composition. An important feature of bioactive glasses, which enables them to work for applications in bone tissue engineering, is their ability to enhance revascularization, osteoblast adhesion, enzyme activity and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells as well as osteoprogenitor cells.

ZrO2 thin-film-based sapphire fiber temperature sensor.

A submicrometer-thick zirconium dioxide film was deposited on the tip of a polished C-plane sapphire fiber to fabricate a temperature sensor that can work to an extended temperature range. Zirconium dioxide was selected as the thin film material to fabricate the temperature sensor because it has relatively close thermal expansion to that of sapphire, but more importantly it does not react appreciably with sapphire up to 1800 °C. In order to study the properties of the deposited thin film, ZrO2 was also deposited on C-plane sapphire substrates and characterized by x-ray diffraction for phase analysis as well as by atomic force microscopy for analysis of surface morphology.

Long period gratings in random hole optical fibers for refractive index sensing.

We have demonstrated the fabrication of long period gratings in random hole optical fibers. The long period gratings are fabricated by a point-by-point technique using a CO(2) laser. The gratings with a periodicity of 450 μm are fabricated and a maximum coupling efficiency of -9.

Porous capillary tubing waveguide for multigas sensing.

This Letter reports simultaneous acetylene and carbon monoxide gas sensing by using a porous hollow-core waveguide. Compared to evanescent wave based gas sensors, the hollow-core waveguide can have a much better sensitivity because the majority of the light-wave energy propagating in the hollow core can interact directly with the gas molecules. The wall of the waveguide is made porous by the phase separating and leaching of the initial glass tubing.

Silica-antibiotic hybrid nanoparticles for targeting intracellular pathogens.

We investigated the capability of biodegradable silica xerogel as a novel carrier of antibiotic and the efficacy of treatment compared to that with the same dose of free drug against murine salmonellosis. The drug molecules (31%) entrapped in the sol-gel matrix remained in biologically active form, and the bactericidal effect was retained upon drug release. The in vitro drug release profiles of the gentamicin from the xerogel and that from the xerogel-polyethylene glycol (PEG) were distinctly different at pH 7.

Bending-induced optical loss in random-hole optical fibers.

We present the experimentally determined optical bend loss for random hole optical fibers in the spectral range 1520 to 1570 nm induced by wrapping the optical fiber around a fixed diameter mandrel. The optical losses are compared to those obtained for a single-mode fiber and a multimode fiber using the same bending procedures. The bending induced optical losses in the random hole optical fibers were several orders of magnitude lower than for the single-mode fiber and were about 1 order of magnitude lower than for the multimode fiber.

Core-suction technique for the fabrication of optical fiber preforms.

A novel technique, named "core suction," for fabricating optical fiber preforms has been devised. The technique involves drawing the molten nonconventional core glass material into the cladding tube to form the preform. The developed technique is simple, inexpensive, and shows great potential for fabricating preforms of highly nonlinear nonconventional glasses as the core material.

Tunable-optical-filter-based white-light interferometry for sensing.

We describe tunable-optical-filter-based white-light interferometry for sensor interrogation. By introducing a tunable optical filter into a white-light interferometry system, one can interrogate an interferometer with either quadrature demodulation or spectral-domain detection at low cost. To demonstrate the feasibility of effectively demodulating various types of interferometric sensor, experiments have been performed using an extrinsic Fabry-Perot tunable filter to interrogate two extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric temperature sensors and a diaphragm-based pressure sensor.

Signal-processing algorithm for white-light optical fiber extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric sensors.

We present a novel signal-processing algorithm for single-mode optical fiber extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric sensors that can achieve both high-resolution, absolute measurement of the cavity length and a large dynamic measurement range simultaneously. The algorithm is based on an accurate model of the characteristics of a fiber-optic sensor that takes into account the phase shift that is due to the coupling of light reflected at the second surface to the lead-in fiber end.

Self-compensating fiber optic flow sensor system and its field applications.

A self-compensating fiber optic flow sensor system based on the principle of broadband white-light interferometers and cantilever beam bending is described. The fiber optic sensor system uses two fiber ferrule sensors that are bonded on either side of a cantilever beam to measure the flow rate by monitoring the air-gap changes caused by the bending of the cantilever beam. Cross sensitivity of the temperature and pressure dependence of the sensor can be compensated for automatically.