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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 21, NO. 5, MAY 2003

Novel Fiber-Optic Sensors Based on Long-Period

Fiber Gratings Written by High-Frequency CO2
Laser Pulses
Yun-Jiang Rao, Member, OSA, Yi-Ping Wang, Member, OSA, Zeng-Ling Ran, and Tao Zhu, Associate Member, IEEE

AbstractIn this paper, we report a novel long-period fiber

grating (LPFG) fabricated by using a new writing technique
that is mainly based on the thermal shock effect of focused
high-frequency CO2 laser pulses at several kilohertz. A number
of unique characteristics of such a LPFG, such as bend, torsion,
and transverse load, are observed by experiments, for the first
time, to our knowledge. Based on these unique features, a novel
bend-insensitive LPFG sensor that could solve the problem of
cross-sensitivity between bend and other measurands, a novel
torsion sensor that can realize absolute measurement of twist rate,
and a load sensor that can achieve simultaneous measurement of
transverse load and temperature using a single LPFG element are
proposed and demonstrated. These unique features of the LPFGs
are mainly due to the asymmetrical distribution of the refractive
index on the cross section of the LPFG induced by high-frequency
CO2 laser pulses.
Index TermsBend sensors, load sensors, long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs), optical fiber sensors, temperature sensors, torsion
sensors.

I. INTRODUCTION

LONG WITH the rising cost of building and replacing

civil infrastructure systems, as well as increased demands
placed on such systems, there is an elevated concern about monitoring their health. This requires the development of smart sensors suitable for real-time and in situ measurement of engineering structures. Many smart sensors, for example, optical
fiber sensors, have been investigated to meet this requirement
in the past decade [1], [2]. In-fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) have
recently emerged as elegant in-fiber sensors, which are particularly suitable for multiplexed and quasidistributed applications
[3]. One of the most important applications of FGB sensors that
has been demonstrated to date is for the so-called fiber-optic
smart structures, where FBGs are embedded into the structure to monitor its strain distribution [2], [3]. However, FBG
sensors suffer from limited external conditions-induced spectral displacements, and these sensors can be difficult to manufacture because of stringent stability requirements. In addition,
the use of expensive phase masks during fabrication, and the
need for isolators to prevent back-reflection-induced source oscillations, adds to the overall cost of the sensor system. In recent
Manuscript received August 8, 2002; revised November 20, 2002. This work
is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the
Outstanding Young Scientist Program (Grant 60025515).
The authors are with the Department of Optoelectronic Engineering,
Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China (e-mail: yjrao@cqu.edu.cn;
ypwang@china.com ).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2003.810561

years, long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs) with a typical period

of hundreds of micrometers have attracted great attention [4],
[5]. LPFG sensors have many advantages, such as ease of fabrication, very low back reflection, low insertion loss, polarization
independence, and in particular, higher temperature [6], bend
[7], torsion [8], and load sensitivity [9] over FBGs. These features make LPFG sensors suitable for a number of sensing applications where higher sensitivities are needed.
In this paper, we report novel optical fiber sensors based on
the LPFGs written by the high-frequency CO laser pulses exposure technique reported by the authors previously [10]. Due to
the difference in writing mechanisms, such as LPFG has many
unique features that are different from the LPFGs fabricated by
using ultraviolet (UV)-light. The main difference is that the sensitivities of its resonant wavelength against a number of measurands, such as bend and transverse load, strongly depend on
circular orientations. This is due to the asymmetrical distribution of the refractive index on the cross section of the LPFG
induced by the high-frequency CO laser pulses. In this paper,
the operating principle of such an LPFG is presented first in
Section II, and then the optical characteristics are investigated
in Section III. The mechanical characteristics, including temperature, strain, bend, torsion, and transverse load, are investigated by experiments in Section IV. Based on the experimental
results, a number of novel fiber-optic sensors are demonstrated
by using such an LPFG, including a bend-insensitive sensor, an
absolute torsion sensor, and a transverse load sensor with temperature compensation. The paper is concluded in Section V.
II. OPERATING PRINCIPLE
The UV laser pulses exposure method has been widely used
for fabrication of LPFGs by means of the photosensitivity
of Ge-doped optical fibers [11]. However, the UV exposure
method has some constraints in practical applications, including
the use of expensive UV lasers, the high running cost of UV
lasers, and the relatively poor long-term stability if annealing
is improper. In this paper, LPFGs are fabricated using a new
technique that is mainly based on the thermal shock effect of
high-frequency CO laser pulses at several kilohertz (patent
issued) [10]. Compared with the method using low-frequency
CO laser pulses at several hertz reported previously [12],
this new technique is more effective in terms of the writing
efficiency due to the significant increase in the transient laser
energy density focused on the fiber, which is likely to cause
larger densification and residual stress relief and hence larger

0733-8724/03$17.00 2003 IEEE

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Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the high-frequency CO laser fabrication system.

refractive index change within both the cladding and core

regions of the fiber. The schematic diagram of the CO laser
system for LPFG fabrication is shown in Fig. 1. The CO
laser (SYNRAD, Inc.) has a full power of 10 W and operates
at a typical frequency of 5 kHz, which is probably the best
frequency for glass to absorb the energy of a CO laser. The
laser power is controlled by a pulsewidth modulation of the
radio frequency (RF) drive circuit used to excite the plasma
tube that is used to generate lasing. The fiber is scanned at both
and
axes by means of a two-dimensional (2-D) optical
scanner attached to the laser head. The laser beam is focused
50 m using a ZnSe lens with
to a spot with a diameter of
a focusing length of 100 mm.
In our experiment, the focused spot was stepped by 1 um
to achieve multiple exposures of the high-frequency CO laser
pulses at a fixed point on the fiber. The period of the high-frequency CO laser pulses was 200 s, and the delay time of each
step of the scanner was 700 s, so each single light spot experienced 3.5 pulses. The width of a single laser pulse was 16.5 s;
therefore, the total exposure time for a single spot was 1.5 ms,
which is much shorter than that used in [12], i.e., 290 ms. Hence,
the transient energy focused on the fiber is high, i.e., 6.67 W/ms;
it is more likely to lead to the generation of the thermal shock effect, which causes larger densification and residual stress relief
and hence larger refractive index change of the fiber glass [13],
[14]. This means that the thermal shock effect would dominate
the formation of the periodic grating in this case. In addition, the
averaging laser power used in this work was 0.83 W; therefore,
the total optical energy for a single spot on the fiber along the
direction is approximately equal to 7.4 J mm , which is very
similar to that used in [12], i.e., 7 J mm . Therefore, the heating
process did not cause any physical deformation or damage on
the fiber, which was verified by observing the surface of the
LPFG with a microscope.
When the CO laser beam is focused on the fiber, both transmission and reflection occur on the incident side of the fiber
simultaneously. As silica glass has a strong absorption around
the wavelength of the high-frequency CO laser, i.e., 10.6 m,

the incident CO light intensity is gradually weakened along the

incident direction, that is, the incident light intensity is strong
on the incident side of the fiber; on the other hand, the incident
light intensity is weak on the escape side of the fiber, which is
likely to result in an asymmetric index change within the cross
section of the fiber, so the index change on the incident side
is larger than that on the escape side [15]. LPFGs couple the
guided fundamental mode in a single-mode fiber (SMF) to forward-propagating cladding modes. The phase-matching condition for LPFGs is [5]
(1)
and
are the propagation constants of the funwhere
damental core mode and the th-cladding mode, respectively,
is the grating period, and is the order of cladding modes.
Therefore, the resonant condition for coupling is given by [16]
(2)
is the initial resonant wavelength, and
and
where
are effective indexes of the fundamental core mode and
the th-cladding mode, respectively. The characteristics of the
LPFGs are affected by external perturbations, such as temperature, strain, bend, torsion, and load. The sensing effects are primarily due to a differential change induced in the two modes.
and
More specifically, since the effective indexes
undergo dissimilar changes owing to a change in the external
conditions, the difference between the effective indexes of the
, is altered. In addition, a fixed periodicity
two modes
of the LPFG shrinks or stretches resulting from a change in external conditions as well. Therefore, as shown in (2), the resonant wavelength of the LPFG has to shift owing to the change
and/or . The change of external parameters such as
of
temperature, strain, bend, torsion and load, can be determined
by measuring the resonant wavelength shift of the LPFG. The
inherent sensitivity of the mode coupling to small perturbations
in the guided and cladding modes makes the coupling resonant

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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 21, NO. 5, MAY 2003

TABLE I
OPTICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LPFGs WRITTEN BY HIGH-FREQUENCY CO
LASER PULSES

Fig. 2. Transmission spectrum of the LPFG written by high-frequency CO

laser pulses.

wavelength of the LPFG highly sensitive to the effective index

or
, in the
change averaged over a grating period,
core or cladding region, respectively. Therefore, the asymmetry
index distribution within the cross section of the LPFG could
result in the orientation dependence of the bend and transverse
load sensitivity of the LPFG and further theoretical investigation is underway.
III. OPTICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LPFGS
The optical characteristics of the LPFGs fabricated by highfrequency CO laser pulses were tested by experiments. In our
experiment, the light source used was a 2-mW superluminescent diode (SLD) with a central wavelength of 1545 nm and a
bandwidth of 50 nm (OptoSpeed SA, Switzerland). The transmission spectrum of the LPFG was obtained via an optical spectrum analyzer (HP86142B) with a resolution of 0.1 nm. The
typical transmission spectrum of the LPFG in a small spectral
range is shown in Fig. 2, where the core mode couples to the seventh-cladding mode. The optical characteristics of the LPFGs
fabricated are summarized in Table I.

Fig. 3. Strain response of the LPFG induced by high-frequency CO laser

pulses.

IV. NOVEL FIBER-OPTIC SENSORS BASED ON THE LPFGs

The mechanical characteristics of the LPFG induced by
high-frequency CO laser pulses, including strain, temperature,
bend, torsion, and load responses, are studied by experiments.
Some novel features have been observed, for the first time, to
our knowledge. A number of fiber-optic sensors based on the
LPFGs are demonstrated in the following subsections.
A. Strain Sensor
The experimental results for strain measurement are shown in
Fig. 3. The strain sensitivity of the LPFG with a central wavefabricated using a standard telecommunilength at 1526.5
0.45 nm/m , which is a few times smaller
cation fiber is
than that of an FBG [3].
B. Temperature Sensor
The relationship between temperature and the central wavelength shift of the LPFG is given in Fig. 4. The temperature
0.058 nm C, which is
sensitivity for a 1522-nm LPFG is
several times larger than that of the FBG [3]. In addition, a spe-

Fig. 4. Temperature response of the LPFG induced by high-frequency CO

laser pulses.

cial photosensitive SMF was used and the results are shown in
Fig. 5. It can be seen from Fig. 5 that the wavelength temperature
sensitivity of the LPFG is 0.3 nm C , while the maximum
change in the resonant peak amplitude is merely 0.1 dB, i.e.,
the amplitude is insensitive to the temperature. Therefore, such
an LPFG can be used as an excellent temperature sensor.

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Fig. 7. Relationship between central wavelength shift and axial orientation.

Fig. 5. Temperature response of the LPFG written using a special
photosensitive fiber.

Fig. 6. Experimental setup for bend test of LPFGs.

(a)

C. Bend Sensor
The cross-sensitivity between bend and other measurands
could affect the measurement accuracy. In this way, the
bend-sensitive advantage of the LPFG seems to be a disadvantage for measuring other measurands. Hence, a sensor that
could solve the problem of cross-sensitivity is of importance
for practical applications. In this paper, a novel bend-insensitive LPFG sensor is demonstrated. Fig. 6 illustrates the
configuration of an experimental system used for the bend test
of the LPFG fabricated. The fiber with the LPFG located in
its middle was mounted on a metal beam. The two ends of
the fiber were pasted on two small sheets that were inserted
in the slot of two disks, respectively. Two 5-g masses were
attached to the two ends of the fiber to ensure that the fiber
was attached to the beam properly. The two small sheets would
rotate the fiber when the disk was turned. The fiber was bent
at the center of the metal beam by using a precise micrometer
driver. Our experimental results show that the bend-sensitivity
of the high-frequency CO -induced LPFG depends on its
curved orientation strongly. There are two symmetric orientations that are the most bend-insensitive, and the other two
symmetric orientations too, which are the most bend-sensitive,
as shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 8 shows the resonant wavelength shift
against the bending curvatures at these special positions with
different bending sensitivities. Fig. 8(a) shows that the resonant
wavelength is hardly shifted when the curvature plane is at the
most bend-insensitive orientation. As the curvature is changed
0 m to
1.1 m , the resonant wavelength
from
shift is only 0.018 nm, corresponding to a bend sensitivity of
0.016 nm/m, which is at least two orders of magnitudes lower

(b)
Fig. 8. Wavelength shift against bending curvature at two extreme positions
with a different bend sensitivity: (a) the lowest sensitivity and (b) the highest
sensitivity.

than that of a typical LPFG written by the UV laser beam [7].

Fig. 8(b) shows that the relationship between the wavelength
shift and the bending curvature is linear when the curvature
plane is at the most bend-sensitive orientation, corresponding to
a bend sensitivity of 7 nm/m. This phenomenon could be due
to the asymmetric distribution of the refractive index induced
by the high-frequency CO laser exposures as mentioned
previously. The schematic diagram of the refractive index
profile in the core and cladding region of the LPFG is shown in
Fig. 9. Therefore, the bend sensitivity of the LPFG varies with
its circular positions due to the asymmetry index distribution
within the fiber region. The most bend-sensitive direction is the
same as the incident and/or escape direction, while the most
bend-insensitive position is at the two sides of the fiber that are
normal to the incident direction.

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Fig. 9. Schematic of the refractive-index distribution on the cross section of

LPFGs.

JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 21, NO. 5, MAY 2003

Fig. 10. Experimental setup for a twist test of the LPFG.

In practice, the side of the LPFG corresponding to the most

bend-insensitive orientations is mounted on the surface of the
substrate. As the resonant wavelength of the LPFG is hardly
affected by bending, the measurement accuracy can be greatly
improved due to the minimization of the bending effect. Such a
bend-insensitive LPFG sensor could solve the problem of crosssensitivity between bend and other measurands, such as temperature, strain and refractive index, which is an unsolved problem
for LPFG sensors so far.
D. Torsion Sensor
Conventional torsion sensors are normally based on angle
measurement devices, such as optical encoders or magnetic sensors [17], and it is impossible to embed these bulk devices into
the structure due to their large size. Fiber-optic torsion sensors
can be embedded into the structure, since they have a compact size. However, absolute torsion measurement cannot be
achieved by using the polarimetric approach reported [18]. Very
recently, an all-fiber torsion sensor has been demonstrated to address this issue, where a corrugated LPFG was used [8]. However, this LPFG torsion sensor would be quite difficult to use
in practice due to the factor that the operational condition (i.e.,
the mode coupling condition) of the corrugated LPFG will be
affected greatly when embedded into a structure, since the material of the structure may fulfill the corrugated section of the
LPFG, which may lead to the failure of the sensor. In addition,
the mechanical strength of such a corrugated LPFG is a question. In this paper, a novel torsion sensor based on the LPFG
written by high-frequency CO laser pulses is demonstrated,
for the first time, to our knowledge. Such a torsion sensor can,
not only measure the applied twist rate directly, but also determine the twist direction. Fig. 10 illustrates the configuration of
an experimental system used for testing the torsion characteristic of the novel LPFG written by focused high-frequency CO
laser pulses. The pitch of the LPFG used here was
437 m
with a total period number of 45. One end of the LPFG was
fixed, and the other end was pasted on a small sheet that was
inserted in the slot of a disk. The fiber with the LPFG in the
middle was located on the axis of the disk. A 5-g mass was attached to the fiber to keep the LPFG straight. The small sheet
can not only twist the LPFG when the disk is rotated, but also
ensure that the fiber moves slightly along the twist axis in order

Fig. 11.

Resonant wavelength versus applied twist rate.

to eliminate the additional axial strain that would cause measurement error. The total length of the fiber twisted was 60 mm.
By rotating the disk clockwise (see Fig. 10) with an angle step
of 15 , a total torsion angle of 120 , i.e., a twist rate of 17.5
rad/m, between the two ends of the LPFG was induced, then the
LPFG was loosened gradually to be free. The same procedures
were repeated counterclockwise. Our experimental results illustrate that the resonant wavelength shift of such an LPFG varies
linearly with the twist rate applied. As shown in Fig. 11, the
resonant wavelength shifts linearly toward a longer wavelength
as the LPFG is twisted clockwise, whereas it shifts linearly toward a shorter wavelength as the LPFG is twisted counterclockwise, indicating a good linear response with a high sensitivity
( 0.0645 nm/(rad/m)) and a good repeatability. Such an LPFG
can be used as a novel torsion sensor that can realize the absolute measurement of torsion. Accordingly, this all-fiber absolute
torsion sensor could find important engineering applications in
the field of smart structures where the ability for the sensor to
be embedded into the structure is critical.
E. Load Sensor
For health monitoring of engineering structures and civil
infrastructures, measurement accuracy is often affected by
the cross-sensitivity between temperature and transverse load;
hence, simultaneous measurement of temperature and transverse load using a single sensor element is very attractive from
the practical point of view. Several single-sensor methods have
been proposed, but relatively complex matrix equations have to

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Fig. 13. Relationship between resonant wavelength shift and circular

orientation while load on LPFG is 80 g 1 mm .

Fig. 12.

Experimental setup for loading the test of LPFG.

be solved to separate temperature and load. Hence, this process

limits the measurement accuracy. In this paper, the unique load
characteristics of the LPFG induced by the high-frequency
CO laser pulses exposure method is demonstrated, for the first
time, to our knowledge. Fig. 12 illustrates the configuration
of the experimental system used for testing transverse-load
characteristics of the novel LPFG. The pitch of the LPFG
500 m with a total period number of
used here was
55, a resonant wavelength of 1530.82 nm, a resonant peak
amplitude of 25.075 dB, and a 3-dB bandwidth of 12 nm
under the free state. The two ends of the fiber with the LPFG
were mounted on the centers of two disks, respectively. The
LPFG and a dummy fiber of the same type were laid between
was applied onto the top plat.
two flat surfaces. The load
20 mm and 150
The width and weight of the top plat was
g, respectively. The weight was increased by 400 g each time
and accumulated up to 4800 g. The actual load on the LPFG
. The LPFG was rotated around
is expressed by
the fiber by turning one of the two disks so that the loading
characteristics of the LPFG at different loading orientations
were tested. Experiment results show that the load sensitivity
of the LPFG depends strongly on loading orientations (see
Fig. 13) where the horizontal coordinate shows circular loading
orientations. As shown in Fig. 14(a), the resonant wavelength
sensitivities against loading at different circular orientations
are dissimilar. The resonant wavelength is insensitive at two
special orientations, and the maximum wavelength shift is
only 0.1 nm. In addition, the resonant wavelength increased
the red shift linearly at some loading orientations, whereas
the resonant wavelength arose the blue shift linearly at
other loading orientations. The maximum load-sensitivity of
. As
the resonant wavelength was 0.03 nm g mm
shown in Fig. 14(b), the load sensitivities of the resonant peak
amplitude are similar at different circular positions, i.e., with a
, and the
coefficient of approximately 0.07 dB g mm
resonant peak amplitude decreases linearly as load increases.
Based on these unique characteristics of the LPFGthat the
resonant wavelength is insensitive to loading at some special orientations while the resonant peak amplitude linearly decreases
during load increasing, and that the resonant wavelength lin-

(a)

(b)
Fig. 14. (a) Resonant wavelength shift and (b) amplitude versus applied
transverse load at different circular orientations: 0 , 30 , 55 , 130 , and 150 .

early shifts with temperature varying while the resonant peak

hardly changes during temperature varyingtemperature and
transverse load can be measured simultaneously by detecting
the resonant wavelength and the resonant peak amplitude of the
LPFG, respectively. In operation, the side of the LPFG corresponding to the load-insensitive direction is mounted on the surface of the base. The change in loading alters the resonant peak
amplitude linearly and hardly affects the resonant wavelength,
while the temperature change makes the resonant wavelength
shift linearly and has no influence on the resonant peak amplitude. Therefore, such a sensor could avoid the cross-sensitivity problem between temperature and load. There is a small

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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 21, NO. 5, MAY 2003

cross-sensitivity between the transverse load and temperatur,

and it is found that the temperature error induced by loading
was less than 0.3 C, and the transverse load error induced by
temperature was less than 1 g mm , respectively. Therefore,
the measurement error resulting from the cross-sensitivity between the load and temperature can be neglected.

V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a novel method for fabrication of LPFGs,
mainly based on the use of the thermal shock effect of multiple
exposures of high-frequency CO laser pulses at several
kilohertz, has been described. The optical characteristics of
such a type of LPFGs, such as band-rejection ratio, insertion
loss, polarization-dependent loss (PDL), and return loss, have
been investigated by experiments. The performance achieved
can meet practical requirements. In addition, the mechanical
properties of these LPFGs, including strain, temperature, bend,
twist, and transverse-load responses, have been studied by
experiments. It is found that the LPFG written using focused
high-frequency CO laser pulses has a number of unique
features that are quite different from those of the LPFGs written
by the UV exposure method. The wavelength temperature
sensitivity of the LPFG written on a photosensitive fiber
can be very high, while the amplitude is insensitive to the
temperature. The resonant wavelength of the novel LPFG is
bend-insensitive at its two symmetric circular orientations, and
the wavelength-bend sensitivity exhibits a strong dependence
on its curved orientation. It is found, for the first time, to our
knowledge, that 1) the resonant wavelength shift of the novel
LPFG varies linearly with the twist rate applied with determined directions and 2) the resonant peak amplitude change
of the LPFG has a linear relationship with the transverse load
applied and is insensitive to the resonant wavelength shift at
two special circular orientations along the fibers axis. Based on
these experimental results, we propose several novel fiber-optic
sensors, including a novel bend-insensitive LPFG sensor that
could solve the problem of cross-sensitivity between bend
and other measurands, a novel torsion sensor that can realize
absolute measurement of twist rate, and a load sensor that
can achieve simultaneous measurement of transverse load and
temperature using a single LPFG element. Accordingly, it
is anticipated that these LPFG sensors could find important
engineering applications in practice.

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Yun-Jiang Rao received the M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in optoelectronic engineering from Chongqing
University, Chongqing, China, in 1986 and 1990,
respectively, where he led a team to develop the first
fully automatic optical fiber splicing machine in
China.
He joined the Optoelectronics Division of the
Electric and Electronic Engineering Department
of Strathclyde University, Glasgow, U.K., as a
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 1990. He joined the
University of Kent, Cambridge, U.K., as a Research
Fellow and then a Senior Research Fellow from 1992 to 1999, where he
made important contributions to fiber-optic low-coherence interferometry
and in-fiber Bragg grating sensors. He is currently a Full Professor with the
Department of Optoelectronic Engineering, Chongqing University, where he
established an optical fiber technology group with the support of the Ministry
of Education in China. He also founded the Chongqing Bao-Tong Optical
Fiber Technology, Ltd. to undertake research and development and production
of long-period fiber grating filters, optical fiber amplifiers, and amplified
spontaneous emission (ASE) broad-band sources. He is a frequent speaker
at a number of international conferences related to fiber optics, and he has
published over 40 international journal papers (including three review articles)
and 70 conference papers and authored three chapters in three books. Prof.
Rao is a reviewer for a large number of well-known international journals. His
current research interest includes all-fiber devices, in-fiber gratings, optical
fiber amplifiers and lasers, dynamic gain equalizers, and new fiber-optic
sensors.
Prof. Rao is a Member of the International Society for Optical Engineers
(SPIE) and the Optical Society of America (OSA). Due to his outstanding contribution to fiber optics, he received the 2001 Wang-Da-Heng Optics Award from
the Optical Society of China in 2002.

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www.paper.edu.cn
RAO et al.: NOVEL FIBER-OPTIC SENSORS BASED ON LPFGs

Yi-Ping Wang was born in Chongqing, China,

in 1971. He received the B.S. degree in precision
instrument engineering from Xian Institute of
Technology, Xian, China, in 1995, and the M.S.
degree in Precision instrument and mechanism
and the Ph.D. degree in optics engineering from
Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, in 2000
and 2003, respectively.
His current research interests concentrate
primarily on the field of fiber gratings and its
applications in optical fiber communication and
sensing.
Dr. Wang is a Member of the Optical Society America (OSA).

Zeng-Ling Ran received the B.S. degree from

the Applied Physics Department of Chongqing
University, Chongqing, China, in 2000. He is
currently working toward the M.S. degree in optical
fiber communication with the Department of
Optoelectronic Engineering, Chongqing University.
His research interest is in fiber-optic passive and
active components.

1327

Tao Zhu (M01A01) received the B.S. degree

from the Department of Optoelectronic Engineering,
Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, in 2000.
He is currently working toward the M.S. degree in
optical fiber communication with the Department of
Optoelectronic Engineering, Chongqing University.
His research interest is optic passive and active
components.