Fiber optic sensor for dual measurement of temperature and strain using a combined fluorescence lifetime decay and fiber Bragg grating technique

A fiber optic sensor device has been developed incorporating a short length of erbium doped fiber fused in close proximity to a single-fiber Bragg gra ting, to measure both the fluorescent lifetime decay and the wavelength shi ft in these respective elements, for temperature and strain determination. Calibration results obtained from this simple, low cost, intrinsic sensor s cheme show standard deviation errors of 20.4 mu epsilon and 1.2 degreesC ov er strain and temperature ranges of 22-1860 mu epsilon and 25-120 degreesC, respectively. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.