Temperature and strain sensitivities of surface and hybrid acoustic wave Brillouin scattering in optical microfibers

Abstract

Temperature and strain sensitivities of surface acoustic wave (SAW) and hybrid acoustic wave (HAW) Brillouin scattering (BS) in 1 μm–1.3 μm diameter optical microfibers are simulated. In contrast to stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) from bulk acoustic wave in standard optical fiber, SAW and HAW BS, due to SAWs and HAWs induced by the coupling of longitudinal and shear waves and propagating along the surface and core of microfiber respectively, facilitate innovative detection in optical microfibers sensing. The highest temperature and strain sensitivities of the hybrid acoustic modes (HAMs) are 1.082 MHz/°C and 0.0289 MHz/με, respectively, which is suitable for microfiber sensing application of high temperature and strain resolutions. Meanwhile, the temperature and strain sensitivities of the SAMs are less affected by fiber diameter changes, ranging from 0.05 MHz/°C/μm to 0.25 MHz/°C/μm and 1 × 10−4 MHz/με/μm to 5 × 10−4 MHz/με/μm, respectively. It can be found that that SAW BS for temperature and strain sensing would put less stress on manufacturing constraints for optical microfibers. Besides, the simultaneous sensing of temperature and strain can be realized by SAW and HAW BS, with temperature and strain errors as low as 0.30 °C–0.34 °C and 14.47 με–16.25 με.