title: Intensity measurement bend sensors based on periodically tapered soft glass fibers.
abstract: We demonstrate a technique for tapering periodically an all-solid soft glass fiber, consisting of two types of lead silicate glasses, by the use of a focused CO(2) laser beam and investigate the bend sensing applications of the periodically tapered soft glass fiber. Such a soft glass fiber with periodic microtapers could be used to develop promising bend sensors with a sensitivity of -27.75 μW/m(-1) by means of measuring the bend-induced change of light intensity. The proposed bend sensor exhibits a very low measurement error of down to ±1%.
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. ypwang@china.com
authors.forename: Yiping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.forename: Gilberto
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Brambilla
authors.forename: Xian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petrovich
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Zhangqi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Song