Strain and temperature effects on Erbium-doped fiber for decay-time based sensing

Abstract

An experimental investigation into the strain and temperature sensitivity of the fluorescence decay time in commercial erbium-doped optical fiber has been carried out. Results show that a strain effect on the performance of temperature-based sensors using such fiber is larger than that for neodymium-doped fiber, but a little smaller than is seen in similar ytterbium-doped material. For the materials studied, the relative change in lifetime ranges from about 5×10−7 (for Yb) to 14×10−7 (for Nd) με−1 and the associated error in the temperature measurement ranges from 1.8×10−3 (for Nd) to 6.1×10−3 Kμε−1 for the Yb sample used. The application to simultaneous strain and temperature monitoring is discussed.