Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-662 Warsaw, Poland.
Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-665 Warsaw, Poland.
Sensors (Basel). 2019 Sep 19;19(18):4052. doi: 10.3390/s19184052.
This paper presents the possibility of applying a soft polymer coating by means of a layer-by-layer (LbL) technique to highly birefringent polymer optical fibers designed for laminating in composite materials. In contrast to optical fibers made of pure silica glass, polymer optical fibers are manufactured without a soft polymer coating. In typical sensor applications, the absence of a buffer coating is an advantage. However, highly birefringent polymer optical fibers laminated in a composite material are much more sensitive to temperature changes than polymer optical fibers in a free space as a result of the thermal expansion of the composite material. To prevent this, we have covered highly birefringent polymer optical fibers with a soft polymer coating of different thickness and measured the temperature sensitivity of each solution. The results obtained show that the undesired temperature sensitivity of the laminated optical fiber decreases as the thickness of the coating layer increases.
本文提出了通过层层（LbL）技术在用于复合材料层压的高双折射聚合物光纤上应用软聚合物涂层的可能性。与由纯二氧化硅玻璃制成的光纤不同，聚合物光纤在制造时没有软聚合物涂层。在典型的传感器应用中，没有缓冲涂层是一个优势。然而，由于复合材料的热膨胀，层压在复合材料中的高双折射聚合物光纤比在自由空间中的聚合物光纤对温度变化更为敏感。为了防止这种情况，我们已经用不同厚度的软聚合物涂层覆盖了高双折射聚合物光纤，并测量了每种溶液的温度敏感性。所得结果表明，随着涂层厚度的增加，层压光纤的不期望的温度敏感性降低。
