Photonics Spectra: fiber optic sensors This is the syndication feed for Photonics Spectra: fiber optic sensors. https://www.photonics.com/Splash.aspx?Tag=fiber+optic+sensors Thu, 28 Mar 2024 07:26:11 GMT Mon, 16 Dec 2019 13:50:42 GMT 1800 Fiber Optic-Based Sensor Measures pH Levels in Cell-Growth Environments
Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are developing a photonic sensor to study tissue growth in the lab. The proof-of-concept sensor uses a light-based signal to measure pH, an important property in cell-growth studies. Unlike conventional sensors, the photonic sensor could be used to monitor the environment in a cell culture for weeks at a time without the need to disturb the cell-growth environment.

As cells grow, their environment becomes more acidic. If the environment becomes too acidic or too basic, the cells will die. “An increment of 0.1 pH is significant,” researcher Zeeshan Ahmed said. If researchers disturb the growing cells every time they have to measure the cell...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Fiber_Optic-Based_Sensor_Measures_pH_Levels_in/p5/a65378 A65378 Mon, 16 Dec 2019 13:50:42 GMT
Fiber Optic Sensors Compete in Environmental Monitoring Market
Modern societies are facing rising concerns about global environmental issues, including an alarming rise in pollution of our seas, waterways, land, and air. As we bear witness to widespread industrialization along with mass consumption trends, environmental pollution has become more than a health issue; it poses a threat to entire ecosystems.

Addressing these issues first requires us to know the nature of the beast. What is the scale of the problem? Fiber optic sensors could be the ideal tool in the armory needed to provide the real story of what is floating in our seas, leaking across our land, and wafting in the air around us.


Fiber optics could help monitor and mitigate some of the serious environmental damage brought on...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Fiber_Optic_Sensors_Compete_in_Environmental/p5/a64898 A64898 Wed, 10 Jul 2019 09:13:47 GMT
Photonic Sensors Help Keep Earth Clean, Green
Spectroscopic, fiber optic sensing, and light detection and ranging (lidar) technologies increasingly are being employed in the wind and geothermal energy sectors; in making fossil fuel exploration, extraction and distribution as well as fossil-fuel-based energy generation cleaner, safer and more efficient; and in monitoring greenhouse emissions and pollution and their effects on the planet.
Photonic sensors play a major role in a sustainable future and, in particular, in a variety of applications in the generation, distribution and conservation of energy, as well as in the mitigation of the effects of energy production and consumption on the environment.

Electricity generation from wind energy is rapidly growing in the US and...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Photonic_Sensors_Help_Keep_Earth_Clean_Green/p5/a50307 A50307 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT
Smart, Self-Healing Fibers Laugh at Danger
Light, sturdy fiber optic sensors can help monitor conditions in power plants, on airplane wings, on dams and in other hard-to-reach places.
The composition of fiber optic sensors enables them to be placed in areas where traditional point sensors simply cannot go. “If you can glue it, wrap it, wind it, bury it, encase it or bond it, fiber optic sensing can monitor it,” said Paul Richardson, senior product manager at Oz Optics Ltd. of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Today, fiber optic sensors are cropping up in a variety of places, including turbine blades, power cables, airplane wings, dams and levees, where they can be used to measure strain, temperature, light intensity or even air pressure.

Compared with electrical...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Smart_Self-Healing_Fibers_Laugh_at_Danger/p5/a48972 A48972 Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT
Virginia Tech Photonics Center to Develop Sensors for Power Systems
The photonics center has a history of achievements in the area of optical fiber sensors. Anbo Wang, Virginia Tech professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the center, holds a number of patents on sensing technologies.

One of his latest DoE awards is critical to the development of clean energy technology in America, according to the...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Virginia_Tech_Photonics_Center_to_Develop_Sensors/p5/a48145 A48145 Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT
Patent Application Submitted https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Patent_Application_Submitted/p5/a46166 A46166 Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Opsens Files to Patent OptoWire
The company’s in-house team developed the OptoWire in parallel with the EasyWire. Also for use in FFR—an index of the functional severity of a coronary stenosis that is calculated from pressure measurements taken before and after a narrowing of the arteries during coronary arteriography—the EasyWire was unveiled in December 2010.

The OptoWire is a guide wire instrumented with a fiber optic pressure sensor, which is drift free and provides a high fidelity measurement of blood pressure in coronary arteries....]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Opsens_Files_to_Patent_OptoWire/p5/a45760 A45760 Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT
Sensor System Order https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Sensor_System_Order/p5/a45227 A45227 Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT Sensor Company Announces New Website
According to the company, the new site is search engine friendly, easy to navigate and includes several new features. An applications section includes examples of industrial uses for Columbia Sensors. Contact with Columbia personnel can be done using a simple form. Comments and questions can be e-mailed to the company. Finding a sales representative, domestically or internationally, can be done quickly, using the representative database.

The company’s products are accessible through a drop-down menu. A single click brings the user to a...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Sensor_Company_Announces_New_Website/p5/a44437 A44437 Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT
ISP Cochin – Pioneer of Photonics in India
Here, I'd like to touch upon a captivating discussion I had with C.P. Girijavallabhan, Professor Emeritus, International School of Photonics (ISP), Cochin, and its founder director, who painted a great picture of how the ISP actually came into being.

He said: "We began by starting off a small laser group in the mid 1980s. In 1992, we started the M.Tech. course in optoelectronics and lasers (OE & LT). In 1995, we desired to open an International School of Photonics. Subsequently, the school was opened on 28 February, 1995." Hence, the annual Photonics show coincides with the...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/ISP_Cochin_Pioneer_of_Photonics_in_India_/p5/a41488 A41488 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT
Fiber optic sensors market seen hitting $1.6 billion mark
The US fiber optic sensors market is expected to reach $1.6 billion in 2014, up from $235 million in 2007 with a compound annual growth rate of 30 percent, according to a fall 2008 technical market report from BCC Research titled “Fiber Optic Sensors” (Report code: IAS002D).

In 2007, the intrinsic fiber optic sensors market, generating $170 million, was larger than the extrinsic segment. With an annual growth rate of 35 percent, the intrinsic market is expected to jump to $1.4 billion by 2014. The extrinsic market segment is projected to increase in value from $65 million in 2007 to $219 million in 2014, with a compound annual growth rate of 12 percent, according to the company’s analyses.


The value of the US fiber optic sensors...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Fiber_optic_sensors_market_seen_hitting_16/p5/a35929 A35929 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT
To Boldly Go Where No Sensor Has Gone Before
Unlike electrical sensors, fiber optic sensors are impervious to electromagnetic interference, and they can be daisy-chained — connected in series — so that many sensors can be monitored simultaneously with a single detection instrument. But fiber optic sensors and electrical sensors share an inability to function at high temperatures.

Recently, Y. Jun-Jiang Rao and his colleagues at the Research Center for Optical Fiber Technology at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu have demonstrated a fiber optic strain sensor that can operate at a temperature of 800 °C, hundreds of degrees higher than other sensors can withstand. Moreover, their simple fabrication technique makes the sensors easy to...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/To_Boldly_Go_Where_No_Sensor_Has_Gone_Before/p5/a31676 A31676 Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Inclinometer Shows Versatility of Fiber Optic Sensors
There are a multitude of techniques with which to measure temperature, strain, pressure and other parameters with fiber optic sensors. In yet another example of the versatility of optical fibers as measurement devices, a collaboration of scientists from INESC-Porto and Universidade do Porto, both in Portugal, and Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná in Curitiba, Brazil, has designed and demonstrated a fiber optic inclinometer based on a fiber’s taper and a long-period grating in the same fiber. A classic fiber optic Mach-Zehnder interferometer divides the incoming light between two fibers and recombines it at a second junction (Figure 1, top).


Figure 1. In both a classic fiber optic Mach-Zehnder (top) and a single-fiber...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Inclinometer_Shows_Versatility_of_Fiber_Optic/p5/a27543 A27543 Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT
All-Fiber Michelson Interferometer Proposed as Unique Sensor
Researchers at Harbin Engineering University in China have demonstrated an all-fiber Michelson interferometer that they suggest could be used as a displacement sensor, an accelerometer or a flow-velocity sensor. Unlike many other fiber optic sensors, theirs would be independent of environmental temperature and pressure changes because both arms of the Michelson would be affected equally by such changes.

The researchers constructed the interferometer by splicing a dual-core fiber onto the end of a single-mode fiber and coating a 40-percent-reflecting silver surface onto the end of the dual-core fiber (Figure 1). Bending the latter induced a phase difference between the backreflected light in the two cores. The researchers calculated the...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/All-Fiber_Michelson_Interferometer_Proposed_as/p5/a27246 A27246 Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Interrogating Fiber Optic Sensors on the Cheap
Because fiber optic sensors are lightweight, compact and immune to electromagnetic interference, they have found numerous applications in monitoring industrial processes and mechanical structures. But reading the sensors’ data requires precision optical components such as narrowband, wavelength-tunable lasers and filters. The cost of these components makes fiber optic sensors impractical in many applications. Recently, scientists at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK, proposed a novel approach to interrogating fiber optic sensors that could drastically cut costs and increase the utilization of these measuring devices.

Fiber Bragg gratings are probably the most common type of fiber sensor. They have narrowband reflectivities...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Interrogating_Fiber_Optic_Sensors_on_the_Cheap/p5/a27256 A27256 Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Predictions Made for Fiber Optic Sensor Industry Estimated at $214.8 million in 2005, the market for extrinsic sensors, which are used in the telecommunications industry, is expected to grow at a rate of 4.1 percent until 2011, reaching a revenue value of $274.4 million. Forecast to grow at a rate...]]> https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Predictions_Made_for_Fiber_Optic_Sensor_Industry/p5/a23448 A23448 Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT Daily News Briefs https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Daily_News_Briefs/p5/a22937 A22937 Fri, 02 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT Fiber Ring Laser Is Wavelength-Switchable Around 1.5 µm
Multiwavelength lasers are useful for interrogating fiber optic sensors and for testing fiber telecommunications systems, and some day could even serve as telecom transmitters. It sometimes is useful for the laser to produce many wavelengths simultaneously, but a laser capable of switching among its wavelengths, producing only one at a time, can readily find many applications.

Erbium-doped fiber often serves as the gain medium for multiwavelength lasers because it provides the broad, relatively flat gain required. The wavelength-selecting mechanism in these lasers is usually somewhat complex, but investigators in Asia recently demonstrated a simple wavelength- switching scheme based on intracavity polarization.

The collaboration...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Fiber_Ring_Laser_Is_Wavelength-Switchable_Around/p5/a22509 A22509 Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Intracavity Fiber Sensors Are Sensitive and Inexpensive
A novel approach to monitoring fiber optic sensors by placing them inside a mode-locked laser resonator has been conceived and demonstrated by researchers at Insensys Ltd. of Fareham and at Aston University, both in the UK. The technique is sensitive, and its straightforward design eliminates several expensive components required in other fiber optic monitoring systems.

Figure 1. In wavelength division multiplexing, each sensor reflects a different wavelength. The sensors can be fiber Bragg gratings, Fabry-Perot interferometers or other interferometric devices whose reflective spectrum depends on temperature or strain. The optical spectrum analyzer monitors the signal reflected from each sensor.
Fiber optic sensors find frequent...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Intracavity_Fiber_Sensors_Are_Sensitive_and/p5/a20477 A20477 Wed, 01 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Virginia Company to Develop Sensors for US Navy Gas Turbines https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Virginia_Company_to_Develop_Sensors_for_US_Navy/p5/a20595 A20595 Wed, 01 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT