A standard multimode optical fiber can be used as a general purpose spectrometer after calibrating the wavelength dependent speckle patterns produced by interference between the guided modes of the fiber. A transmission matrix was used to store the calibration data and a robust algorithm was developed to reconstruct an arbitrary input spectrum in the presence of experimental noise. We demonstrate that a 20 meter long fiber can resolve two laser lines separated by only 8 pm. At the other extreme, we show that a 2 centimeter long fiber can measure a broadband continuous spectrum generated from a supercontinuum source. We investigate the effect of the fiber geometry on the spectral resolution and bandwidth, and also discuss the additional limitation on the bandwidth imposed by speckle contrast reduction when measuring dense spectra. Finally, we demonstrate a method to reduce the spectrum reconstruction error and increase the bandwidth by separately imaging the speckle patterns of orthogonal polarizations. The multimode fiber spectrometer is compact, lightweight, low cost, and provides high resolution with low loss.

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All-fiber spectrometer based on speckle pattern reconstruction

Multimode optical fiber based spectrometers

A multimode fiber sensor using the intensity inner product of speckle fields is presented. The sensitivity and the dynamic range of the displacement sensing are quantitatively analyzed. We show that the sensitivity of displacement can be in the submicrometer range. Experimental performances show that the results are consistent with the calculated results.

Submicrometer displacement sensing using inner-product multimode fiber speckle fields

We present a fiber-sensing technique that detects the mean-absolute speckle-intensity variation between the updated and the reference speckle pattern for determining the environmental perturbation factor (e.g., displacement, temperature, pressure, acoustic wave). We show that the proposed technique is highly sensitive and simple. One of the major advantages of the proposed technique is that it can perform a fast-response measurement with off-the-shelf electronic hardware. Experimental data for submicrometer displacement as well as temperature measurement are provided. To extend the dynamic range of the proposed technique, one can use an updated reference speckle pattern.

Multimode fiber sensing by using mean-absolute speckle-intensity variation

An optical fiber specklegram sensor interrogation method based on speckle pattern fragmentation is presented. The acquired specklegram images are divided in a square grid, creating sub-images that are further processed by a correlation technique, allowing the quantification of localized changes in the specklegrams. The methodology was tested on the assessment of linear displacements using a microbending transducer, by evaluating different grid sizes. For a 5×5 grid, a 2.53  mm−1 sensitivity over a 0.27 mm range was obtained, representing an extension of 237.5% in comparison to the standard interrogation technique. Therefore, the presented technique allows enhancing the sensor dynamic range without modifying the experimental setup.

Optical fiber specklegram sensor analysis by speckle pattern division

The fiber specklegram is highly sensitive to the relative modal phases and is of multiplexing capability. Its properties are analyzed and experimentally demonstrated.

Shizhou Yin

Papers

Sensing with fiber specklegrams.