Optical and Quantum Electronics (2021) 53:445

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-021-03096-3

Effect of grating length on the response of fiber bragg

grating bonded with graphene on polymer plate

Younis Mohammed Salih1 · Mudhaffer Mustafa Ameen2 ·
Fahmi F. Muhammadsharif3,4   · Ismael Mohammed Mohammed Saeed5 ·
Md Nurul Islam Siddique1

Received: 31 March 2021 / Accepted: 15 July 2021

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
In this work, the sensing characteristics of FBG bonded with graphene on a polymer plate
are demonstrated under various mechanical deflections within the tension and compression
modes. The sensing elements utilized for this purpose were 5 mm, 15 mm, 25 mm, 35 mm
and 45 mm FBG sensor bonded onto the surface of graphene with polymer plate. Results
showed a linear relation between the sensitivity and deflection for the FBGs bonded onto
plastic and deflected at stress locations of 1  cm and 2  cm. However, for the stress loca-
tion of 3  cm and for the FBGs bonded onto graphene with plastic, the response curves
were deviated from being linear. The sensitivity at 3  cm stress location for tension and
compression modes was found to be larger than those for other applied stress locations.
Besides, a linear relationship between the sensitivity and deflection was observed for the
5 mm, 15 mm, 25 mm and 35 mm grating lengths. It was found that the FBG sensitivity
was increased upon the increment of grating length. Noticeably, the sensitivity and deflec-
tion correlation for the 45 mm FBG was found to be sinusoidal, by which a very sensitive
sensor can be produced for environmental monitoring and alarm system applications.

Keywords  Fiber bragg grating · Graphene bonded-FBG · Strain sensor · FBG sensitivity ·
Sinusoidal response

* Fahmi F. Muhammadsharif
fahmi982@gmail.com
1
School of Ocean Engineering Technology and Informatics, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu,
21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia
2
Department of Physics, College of Educational, Ishik University, Erbil, Kurdistan 44001, Iraq
3
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Health, Koya University, Koya KOY45, Koya,
Kurdistan, F.R., Iraq
4
Department of Medical Physics, College of Medicals and Applied Science, Charmo University,
46023 Chamchamal, Sulaimania, Iraq
5
Department of Physics, College of Educational Science, University of Garmian, Kalar,
Kurdistan 46021, Iraq

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 445   Page 2 of 11 Y. M. Salih et al.

1 Introduction

Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) is an optical device which is made from short segment of opti-
cal fiber that reflects particular wavelengths of light and transmits all others. This wave-
length sensitive property is due to the presence of a periodic variation in the refractive
index of the fiber core. FBG sensors are widely used in the smart measurements, such as
dynamic strain, pressure measurement, temperature of a full scale pre-stressed concrete
bridge made with high performance concrete during the construction process, buildings,
piles, bridges, pipelines, tunnels, and dams (Matin et  al. 2005; Lin et  al. 2002; Li et  al.
2004; Sahidan et al. 2020). It is also used for maintenance in flight monitoring and space
vehicles, marine and medical science (Seo et al. 2009; Lee et al. 2010; Kim et al. 2021). Its
application has also been extended to provide online monitoring of cracks or leaks in reac-
tor vessel head penetration of Nuclear power plant (NPP) (Miesen et al. 2011). According
to literature, its wide application area has been mainly attributed to its ability to keep its
reflectivity under radiation exposure (Chan et  al. 2006), its immunity to electromagnetic
interference, applications in remote sensing, stability in harsh environments, multiplexing
capability, high sensitivity, wide dynamic range and simplicity.
Index of refraction (n) and grating length spacing (Λ) of FBG are two main parameters
which play a vital role in the ability of this device for sensing the strain and temperature
variations. Because of the heavily dependence of n and Λ on temperature and strain, the
wavelength of the reflected component, which is known as Bragg’s wavelength (λB), can
be interestingly changed by temperature and/or strain. Bragg’s gratings of optical fibre are
now regarded as interesting sensors to examine the mechanical response and monitor the
manufacturing process of composites. It has been reported that these types of sensors capa-
ble of characterizing different process steps in the specific case of the Resin film infusion
(RFI) process and the emergence of internal strains during the process of composite cool-
ing (Kang et  al. 2012). The consequence of the results was to give a mechanical model
so as to assess the strains of 3D laminate that are produced because of steady change in
temperature inside the laminate. The approach was mainly relied on the systematic appli-
cation of the strain-induced birefringence for various FBG and by considering the local
perturbation as a result of the FBG presence to derive the strains of laminate. Interestingly,
the experimental results and theoretical analysis confirmed that the bonding layer leads to
create stress-induced birefringence inside the surface-bonded FBG (Yu et al. 1999). One
might think of the ability to express birefringence effect (increase in area under reflection
peak of FBG) in correlation with another output term and its effect on the reflected spec-
trum. This can be realized by using photodiode with the oscilloscope instead of OSA and
hence the measured output represents the output voltage, as it is carried out in the current
work.
One way of shifting λB can be due to the application of stress onto the FBG, thereby
modifying the spacing of grating period and hence utilizing FBG as a strain sensor. Along
this line, various approaches have been taken by researchers to produce the tension and
compression in the FBG. For instance, (Zhang et  al. 2014) used fast changeable elec-
tromagnetic force, while (Fayed et  al. 2010) employed magnetic actuator, and (Mavoori
et al. 1999) utilized piezoelectric actuator. Furthermore, motorized actuators were used to
produce axial strain (tension or compression) by (Zhang et al. 2014). Alternatively, other
researchers applied beam bending method (Iocco et  al. 1999), of which cantilever beam
with applied lateral strain is used to produce the tension and compression (Goh et al. 2003;
Qin et al. 2001; Kang et al. 2012). In this research work, we use a polymer based cantilever

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Effect of grating length on the response of fiber bragg grating… Page 3 of 11  445

beam, on which a graphene-bonded FBG is attached. It is expected that the use of graphene
acts upon modifying the stiffness of the cantilever, thereby enhancing the overall sensitiv-
ity of the FBG.

2 Materials and methods

A cantilever of polymer plate with respective thickness, wideness and length of 1, 2.6 and
150 mm was used to bond an FBG sensor on a specified area of about 74 × 26 m ­ m2. The
processs of FBG attachement to the polymer plate was done by means of SELLEEYSS
adhesive, as shown in Fig. 1a. The FBG bonded sensor was sandwiched by a similar poly-
mer plates from the other side using a transparent tape, as shown in Fig.  1b. The poly-
mer plates were made of polystyrene (PS) with chemical formula (C8 H8 )n , melting point of
about 240 °C and Young Modulus of 3.5 GPa.
In the next experimental procedures, the FBGs were bonded onto the surface of a gra-
phene paper by carrying out the same procedure as described before. In this case, the FBG-
bonded sensor was sandwitched by the polymer plate with graphene from one side and
another polymer plate from the other side, as shown in Fig. 2b. Therefore, in order to per-
form a fruitful comparison, four FBGs with different grating lengths of 5  mm, 15  mm,
25  mm and 35  mm were bonded onto a polymer plate with graphene and on a polymer
plate alone, separately.
Lateral deflection in the FBG-bonded sensor due to compression and tension was real-
ized by means of two translation stages, namely A and B, as shown in Fig. 3. One end of
the FBG sensor was fixed at the translation stage A, while the other end was allowed to be
displaced by the rotation of the knob on translation B. By this, changes in the curvature
of the polymer plate and in the FBG can be easily produced in micormeter scale either in
compression or tension mode.

Fig. 1  The FBG bonded on polymer plate; a Polymer plate, and FBG dimensions, b A cross-sectional view
of the FBG bonded on polymer plate, and c Real photograph of the FBG bonded on polymer plate

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 445   Page 4 of 11 Y. M. Salih et al.

Fig. 2  The FBG bonded on graphene paper; a Polymer plate, graphene and FBG dimensions, b A cross-
sectional view of the FBG bonded on graphene paper with polymer plate, and c Real photograph of the
FBG bonded on graphene paper with polymer plate

Fig. 3  Experimental setup for the strain measurement

To measure the response of the FBGs, an external amplified spontaneous emission

(ALS-18-B-FA ASE) was used as a light source. This source features with a spectral range
from 1452 to 1652 nm, operating at a maximum power of 1.83 mW. The compression and
tension-based lateral displacements to the FBGs were carried out by means of a linear
movement of translation stage B in the upward and downward directions, respectively, as
shown in Fig. 3.

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Effect of grating length on the response of fiber bragg grating… Page 5 of 11  445

The whole experimental setup used to perform the objective of this work is shown in
Fig. 4. Accordignly, the sensitivity of the FBG sensors has been measured under various
physical conditions. We have previously (Feng et al. 2016; Salih et al. 2016) concluded that
the application of a stress at 3 cm away from the moveable end of the FBGs bonded on gra-
phene with polymer plate has led to the achievement of optimum performance. Therefore,
in the current study, the location of the applied stress was fixed at 3 cm, while the FBG was
subjected to different lateral displacements in tension and compression modes.

3 Results and discussion

In the first assessment of sensitivity analysis, bonded FBGs with grating length of 25 mm
was established on polymer plate and graphene-attached polymer plate. The FBG devices
were operated at wavelength of 1549.39 nm, which is the characteristic of the fibre gratings
defined by the Bragg reflection wavelength. Results of the output power response with lat-
eral displacement was recorded for both cases of the bonded FBGs at tension and compres-
sion with 1, 2, and 3 cm away from the movable end of the FBGs. Figures 5 and 6 show
the graphs of normalized average output voltage versus linear lateral displacement for the
FBG-bonded onto polymer plate and graphene with polymer plate by means of the incre-
ment of deflection under tension and compression. One can see from the graphs that there
is an increase in the reflected output voltage when the lateral displacement is increased at
different stress locations. This relation was found to be almost linear for the FBGs bonded
on polymer plate and deflected at stress locations of 1 cm and 2 cm. However, for the far
stress location of 3  cm and for the FBGs bonded with graphene on a polymer plate, the
relation curves were deviated from being linear. Therefore, two distinct regions, namely
region I and II in Fig. 5 can be seen, in which the sensitivities of the FBGs are different.
The sensitivities of the FBGs in the low deflection region are higher compared to those in
the high deflection region. This can be safely ascribed to the stress properties of the gra-
phene with polymer plate substrate system. In the low deflection region, the elastic prop-
erty of the substrates is prevailed over the polymer plate property, while in the high deflec-
tion region the polymer plate property becomes more predominant. Based on the obtained
results, the sensitivity for the FBGs was calculated from the slope of the output voltages
using origin pro 9, as tabulated in Tables 1 and 2.
Tables  1 and 2 present quantitative representation of the FBG sensitivities coated on
various substrates while tested under tension and compression. It is obvious from these
results that the sensitivity of the FBG bonded on the graphene incorporated substrate is
higher than that of the non-graphene included substrates for both of the tension and com-
pression situations. This might be attributed to the effect of stiffness of the graphene on
the sensitivity behavior as graphene incorporation is acting upon increasing the overall
strength/stiffness of the substrate.
By means of the sensitivity measurement, the optimum response was found to be for the
FBG-bonded with graphene on a polymer plate substrate. It is worth mentioning that the
sensitivity at 3 cm stress location for both modes (tension and compression) was found to
be larger than those for other applied stress locations. Therefore, the rest of the experimen-
tal investigations has been performed on the FBG-bonded sensor on graphene and at the
stress location of 3 cm. The normalized average output voltage for the FBG-bonded with
graphene on a polymer plate against increased linear lateral displacement was measured

13
 445   Page 6 of 11 Y. M. Salih et al.

Fig. 4  a Experimental setup of tension and compression effect on FBG using an oscilloscope to record the
change in the voltage, b Locations of applied stress, and c Output spectrum of light source

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Effect of grating length on the response of fiber bragg grating… Page 7 of 11  445

At 1cm for polymer Plate

Normalized Output Voltage (V)
At 1cm for Graphene with polymer plate
4.5 At 2cm for polymer Plate
At 2cm for Graphene with polymer plate
4.0 At 3cm for polymer Plate Region II
At 3cm for Graphene with polymer plate
3.5

3.0

2.5
Region I
2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0

-0.5
-1000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000

Lateral displacement (deflection) (µm)

Fig. 5  The normalized output voltage for FBG (1549.39 nm), having 25 mm grating length, at various ten-
sions (increased deflection) at different applied stress locations (1 cm, 2 cm, and 3 cm), (I) low deflection
region, and (II) high deflection region

At 1cm for polymer Plate

At 1cm for Graphene with polymer plate
At 2cm for polymer Plate
3.5 At 2cm for Graphene with polymer plate
At 3cm for polymer Plate
At 3cm for Graphene with polymer plate
3.0
Normalized Output Voltage (V)

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0

-0.5
-1000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Lateral displacement (deflection) (µm)

Fig. 6  The normalized output voltage for FBG (1549.39 nm), having 25 mm grating length, at various com-
pressions (increased deflection) and different applied stress locations (1 cm, 2 cm, and 3 cm)

13
 445   Page 8 of 11 Y. M. Salih et al.

Table 1  Variation of the Substrate Sensitivity × ­10−4(V−1 μm) at three stress

sensitivity at three stress location (tension mode)
locations under the tension for
the FBG sensors bonded on 1 cm 2 cm 3 cm
different substrates
Polymer plate 1.23 2.10 2.95
Graphene with polymer 3.06 4.21 5.39
plate

Table 2  Variation of the Substate Sensitivity × ­10−4(V−1 μm) at three stress

sensitivity at three stress locations (compression mode)
locations under the compression
for the FBG sensors bonded on 1 cm 2 cm 3 cm
different substrates
Polymer plate 0.58 1.45 2.53
Graphene with polymer 1.31 2.52 4.28
plate

5 mm
10 15 mm
25 mm
35 mm
8 45 mm
Normalized Output Voltage (V)

-1000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000

Lateral displacement (deflection) (µm)

Fig. 7  The normalized output voltage versus linear lateral displacement for the FBG-bonded onto polymer
plate with graphene under tension (increased deflection) at 3 cm applied stress location

following the previous methodology. The grating length of the FBGs were 5, 15, 25, 35
and 45 mm and were deflected at 3 cm stress location.
Figures 7 and 8 show the graphs of average voltage versus linear lateral displacement
(d) for the FBG-bonded with graphene on a polymer plate upon the increment of deflec-
tion at both tension and compression modes. Results showed a clear increase in the output

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Effect of grating length on the response of fiber bragg grating… Page 9 of 11  445

5 mm
15 mm
25 mm
8 35 mm
45 mm
Normalized Output Voltage (V)

-1000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000

Lateral displacement (deflection) (µm)

Fig. 8  The normalized output voltage versus linear lateral displacement for the FBG-bonded with graphene
on polymer plate under compression (increased deflection) at 3 cm applied stress location

reflected voltage with the increase of lateral displacement. Furthermore, the rate of incre-
ment in the average output voltage was not the same for all grating lengths. It was found
that the output voltage response of the FBG sensors is increased linearly with the increase
of grating length. However, for the larger grating length of 45 mm, a controversial phenom-
enon was observed, where a sinusoidal relation was found between lateral displacement
and output voltage. This new finding can be specifically important for some desired appli-
cations. However, it is not fully understood why this large deviation in the spectral shape of
the reflected voltage is happened at this grating length. We may ascribe it to a strong effect
of sublaterial spacing change of the grating length, thereby modifying both of the positions
and amplitude of the Bragg’s wavelength. Noticeably, because of the laterial displacement,
the strain change is not linear across the FBG grating spacing, there would be a high pos-
sibility of confining the reflected wavelength so as to produce a different intereference pat-
tern. Neverthless, to deeply address this interesting phenomenon, a fully systematic investi-
gation on the large grating length of FBGs need to be performed in future studies.

4 Conclusions

The output voltage of two types of FBG-boned sensors, namely FBG-bonded onto a
polymer plate and FBG-bonded with graphene on a polymer plate was presented under
both compression and tension modes. For the output voltage of the reflected signal, it
was discovered that the translation stage B acts to alter the output voltage based on
the deflection made to the FBG (1549.39 nm), having 25 mm grating length, at differ-
ent applied stress locations (1 cm, 2 cm, and 3 cm) away from the movable end of the
FBG bonded region. Regarding the sensitivity with respect to stress locations, an almost
linear relationship was observed for the FBGs bonded on polymer plate and deflected
at stress locations of 1  cm and 2  cm. However, for the far stress location (3  cm) and

13
 445   Page 10 of 11 Y. M. Salih et al.

for the FBGs bonded with graphene on a polymer plate, the relation curves were devi-
ated from being linear. The sensitivity at 3 cm stress location for both modes (tension
and compression) was found to be larger than those for other applied stress locations.
For the output voltage of the FBGs with different grating lengths and under various
compressions and tensions, it was discovered that sensitivity of the FBG sensor was
enhanced for the small grating lengths (5 mm and 15 mm), while the response of com-
pression mode is better than that of tension. However, for large grating lengths (25 mm
and 35  mm), the tension mode response was found to be larger than that of compres-
sion. Consequently, the relationship of the change for FBG with grating length 15 mm
and under compression is very linear, showing a regression square ­(R2) of 0.99374. On
the contrary, the spectral shape of the output voltage versus lateral displacement for
the 45  mm FBG showed a sinusoidal relation. We may ascribe this controversial phe-
nomenon to a strong effect of sublaterial spacing change of the grating length, thereby
modifying both of the position and amplitude of the Bragg’s wavelength. Because of the
laterial displacement, the strain change is not linear across the FBG grating spacing, so
there would be a high possibility of confining the reflected wavelength so as to produce
a different intereference pattern.

Acknowledgements  Younis M. Salih would like to thank Universiti Malaysia Terengganu for supporting
this work. He also acknowledges the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education and Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia for their financial funding through GUP vote number Q.J130000.2509.08H40.

Declarations 

Conflict of interests  The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this
work.

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