Fuertes V, Grégoire N, Labranche P, Gagnon S, LaRochelle S, Messaddeq Y
Centre d'optique, Photonique et Laser, Université Laval, 2375 Rue de la Terrasse, Québec, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2023 Aug 9;13(1):12891. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-40161-1.
Rayleigh scattering enhanced nanoparticle-doped optical fibers, for distributed sensing applications, is a new technology that offers unique advantages to optical fiber community. However, the existing fabrication technology, based on in situ grown alkaline earth nanoparticles, is restricted to few compositions and exhibit a great dependence on many experimental conditions. Moreover, there is still several uncertainties about the effect of drawing process on the nanoparticle characteristics and its influence on the scattering enhancement and the induced optical loss. In this work, we shed light on all these issues that prevent the progress in the field and demonstrate the suitability of doping optical fibers with YPO nanocrystals for developing tunable Rayleigh scattering enhanced nanoparticle-doped optical fibers. An exhaustive 3D microstructural study reveals that their features are closely linked to the fiber drawing process, which allow the size and shape engineering at the nanoscale. In particular, the YPO nanocrystals preserve their features to a large extent when the optical fibers are drawn below 1950 °C, which allows obtaining homogeneous nanocrystal features and optical performance. Fabricated fibers exhibit a tunable enhanced backscattering in the range of 15.3-54.3 dB, with respect to a SMF-28 fiber, and two-way optical losses in the range 0.3-160.7 dB/m, revealed by Optical Backscatter Reflectometry (OBR) measurements. This allows sensing lengths from 0.3 m up to more than 58 m. The present work suggests a bright future of YPO nanocrystals for distributed sensing field and open a new gate towards the incorporation of other rare-earth orthophosphate (REPO) nanocrystals with pre-defined characteristics that will overcome the limitations of the current in situ grown alkaline earth-based technology.
用于分布式传感应用的瑞利散射增强型纳米颗粒掺杂光纤是一项新技术，为光纤领域带来了独特优势。然而，现有的基于原位生长碱土金属纳米颗粒的制造技术仅限于少数几种成分，并且对许多实验条件有很大的依赖性。此外，关于拉丝过程对纳米颗粒特性的影响及其对散射增强和诱导光损耗的影响仍存在一些不确定性。在这项工作中，我们阐明了所有这些阻碍该领域进展的问题，并证明了用YPO纳米晶体掺杂光纤对于开发可调谐瑞利散射增强型纳米颗粒掺杂光纤的适用性。详尽的三维微观结构研究表明，它们的特性与光纤拉丝过程密切相关，这使得能够在纳米尺度上进行尺寸和形状工程。特别是，当光纤在1950°C以下拉丝时，YPO纳米晶体在很大程度上保留了它们的特性，这使得能够获得均匀的纳米晶体特性和光学性能。通过光背向散射反射仪（OBR）测量，制造的光纤相对于SMF - 28光纤表现出15.3 - 54.3 dB范围内的可调增强后向散射，以及0.3 - 160.7 dB/m范围内的双向光损耗。这允许实现0.3 m至超过58 m的传感长度。目前的工作表明YPO纳米晶体在分布式传感领域有着光明的前景，并为引入具有预定义特性的其他稀土正磷酸盐（REPO）纳米晶体打开了一扇新的大门，这将克服当前基于原位生长碱土金属技术的局限性。
