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Optical Fiber Technology 9 (2003) 57–79www.elsevier.com/locate/yofte

Invited paper

Review of the present status of optical ﬁber sensors

Byoungho Lee

School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University, Kwanak-Gu Shinlim-Dong,Seoul 151-744, South Korea

Received 28 August 2002

Abstract

The current status of optical fiber sensors is reviewed. The optical fiber sensors have certainadvantages that include immunity to electromagnetic interference, lightweight, small size, highsensitivity, large bandwidth, and ease in implementing multiplexed or distributed sensors. Strain,temperature and pressure are the most widely studied measurands and the fiber grating sensorrepresents the most widely studied technology for optical fiber sensors. Fiber-optic gyroscopes andfiber-optic current sensors are good examples of rather mature and commercialized optical fibersensor technologies. In this paper, among the various fiber-optic sensor technologies, especially,technologies such as fiber grating sensors, fiber-optic gyroscopes, and fiber-optic current sensorsare discussed with emphasis on the principles and current status. Today, some success has beenfound in the commercialization of optical fiber sensors. However, in various fields they still sufferfrom competition with other mature sensor technologies. However, new ideas are being continuouslydeveloped and tested not only for the traditional measurands but also for new applications.

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Keywords:

Optical ﬁber sensor; Fiber grating; Fiber-optic gyroscope; Optical ﬁber current sensor

1. Introduction

Almost thirty years have passed since the study of optical fiber sensors began. Var-ious ideas have been proposed and various techniques have been developed for variousmeasurands and applications. To date, some types of optical fiber sensors have been com-mercialized, but it is also true that, among the various techniques that have been studied,only a limited number of techniques and applications have been commercially successful.Optical fiber sensors have advantages such as immunity to electromagnetic interference

E-mail address:

byoungho@snu.ac.kr.1068-5200/03/$ – see front matter

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B. Lee / Optical Fiber Technology 9 (2003) 57–79

Fig. 1. Distribution of OFS-15 papers according to measurands. Papers not directly related to measurands, suchas those that discuss ﬁber grating sensor interrogators, multiplexing, light sources, etc., are not included in thestatistics. If one paper deals with more than one measurand, the counted paper number is equally divided amongthe measurands. Special session papers on ﬁber-optic gyroscopes are included in the statistics.

(EMI), lightweight, small size, high sensitivity, large bandwidth, and ease in signal lighttransmission. However, in many fields of application, optical fiber sensors should competewith other rather mature technologies such as electronic measurements. To appeal to usersalready accustomed to other mature technologies, the superiority of optical fiber sensorsover other techniques needs to be clearly demonstrated. Typical users are not interested inspecific techniques involved in measurement. They simply desire sensor systems havinggood performances with reasonable price except for very special uses. Hence, optical fibersensor systems should be available in the form of complete systems including detectingand signal-processing electronics. In some cases such as electric protection relaying sys-tems, the sensor systems are simply subsystems of rather larger systems. In some casessuch as optical gyroscopes and optical current sensors, the optical fiber sensors shouldcompete with other optical bulk sensors as well. Even with these difficulties, considerableefforts have been made to study of optical fiber sensors, and some of them are now nearingmaturity.There have been excellent review books and articles on optical fiber sensors suchas Refs. [1–5]. It is impossible to review all of the fiber-optic sensor technologies ina journal article with a limited length. In this paper, the current status of some of theactively studied or well-developed optical fiber sensors will be reviewed. Figure 1 showsthe distribution of papers presented at the 15th Optical Fiber Sensors Conference (OFS-15: IEEE catalog number 02EX533) according to measurands of interest. The conferencewas held in Portland, Oregon, USA in May 2002, and is a major conference in the field of

B. Lee / Optical Fiber Technology 9 (2003) 57–79

59Fig. 2. Distribution of OFS-15 papers according to technologies. If one paper deals with more than one technol-ogy, the counted paper number is equally divided among the technologies. Special session papers on ﬁber-opticgyroscopes (FOGs) are included in the statistics.

opticalfiber sensors.Hencethe statistics of OFS-15provideinformationonrecentresearchtrends in the area of optical fiber sensors. The most highly discussed measurands are strainand temperature, the same as in the conference of five years ago [6]. Figure 2 showsthe technologies involved in the optical fiber sensors presented at OFS-15. Fiber gratingsensors are clearly the most widely studied topic.In Section 2 fiber grating sensor technology, which is the most popular topic in opticalfiber sensors, is reviewed. In Sections 3 and 4 two rather mature topics—fiber-opticgyroscopes (FOGs) and fiber-optic current sensors—are reviewed. In Section 5, othersensors are briefly discussed, which is followed by some concluding remarks.

2. Fiber grating sensors

Although the formation of fiber gratings had been reported in 1978 [7], intensive studyon fiber gratings began after a controllable and effective method for their fabrication wasdevised in 1989 [8]. Fiber gratings have been applied to add/drop filters, amplifier gainflattening filters, dispersion compensators, fiber lasers and so on for optical communica-tions [4]. Extensive studies have also been performed on fiber grating sensors and some of which have now reached commercialization stages.Figure 3 shows types of fiber gratings. Under phase matching conditions, a fiber Bragggrating (FBG) couples the forward propagating core mode to the backward propagatingcore mode. A long-period fiber grating (LPG) can couple the forward propagating coremode to one or a few of the forward propagating cladding modes. A chirped fiber gratinghasa widerreflectionspectrumandeachwavelengthcomponentis reflectedatdifferentpo-