Background technology
Polarization maintaining optical fibre is a class of special optical fiber.Polarization maintaining optical fibre, polarization-maintaining fiber, is a type optical fiber with the linear polarization that keeps institute's transmission ray.Polarization maintaining optical fibre can be applicable to many fields, as multiplexing coherent communication, fibre optic gyroscope, fibre optic hydrophone, polarization sensing etc., is a kind of special optical fiber type that widespread use is worth that has.
In common communications optical fiber, due to its circular symmetry structure, the linearly polarized light of incident is after the transmission through certain distance, and due to the coupling of different polarization pattern, energy exchange, can become ellipse or circularly polarized light and cannot retention wire polarization state.And when a linearly polarized light is coupled into polarization maintaining optical fibre, if the polarization principal axis of the polarization direction of linearly polarized light and polarization maintaining optical fibre overlaps, linearly polarized light can keep its linear polarization until leave polarization maintaining optical fibre in transmitting procedure, i.e. the birefringent phenomenon of polarization maintaining optical fibre.The reason that causes fiber birefringence phenomenon is a lot, and the unevenness of various geometry and stress all can be introduced birefringence.Correspondingly, polarization maintaining optical fibre product also comprises how much birefringences and stress birefrin polarization maintaining optical fibre.The example of how much birefringence polarization maintaining optical fibres is oval fuse polarization maintaining optical fibres, and the fibre core of this polarization maintaining optical fibre is oval-shaped, utilizes the asymmetry of this geometry to produce birefringence effect.Stress birefrin polarization maintaining optical fibre mainly contains three kinds of butterfly junction type polarization maintaining optical fibre, panda type polarization-preserving fiber and oval cladding type polarization maintaining optical fibres.The feature of this type optical fiber is in the covering of optical fiber, to introduce the stressed zone extruding fibre core generation birefringence effect with high expansion coefficient.
In above-mentioned stress birefrin polarization maintaining optical fibre, panda type polarization-preserving fiber is applied the most extensively, and its structure comprises fibre core, stressed zone and clad section, and wherein fibre core is positioned at the core of covering, and two columned stressed zones are distributed in the both sides of fibre core.Fibre core is generally the fluorin-doped quartz glass of germanium, stressed zone is generally boron doped quartz glass and covering is generally pure silica glass material.Because boron quartz has the hot expansibility larger than pure quartz, so stressed zone can produce action of compressive stress in core segment, thereby produce so-called stress birefrin, make polarization maintaining optical fibre there is linear polarization retention.
The cladding diameter of the polarization maintaining optical fibre of current use is generally 125 μ m or 80 μ m.These polarization maintaining optical fibres are because geometry is similar to the geometry of telecommunication optical fiber, and therefore the application in general communication device and system has advantage.
Yet, no matter in communication system or in the application of Fibre Optical Sensor, device miniaturization is the direction of technical development, can stand the requirement that less bending radius or the less polarization maintaining optical fibre product around ring radius could meet miniaturized device.In this respect, the polarization maintaining optical fibre of 125 μ m or 80 μ m cladding diameters, when less bending radius, owing to having larger bending stress, on the fade performance of polarization maintaining optical fibre and birefringenct property, all can produce significant impact, therefore in device miniaturization application, have considerably restriction.Generally speaking, under long-term service condition, cladding diameter is that the bending diameter of the polarization maintaining optical fibre of 125 μ m should be more than 60mm, and the bending diameter that cladding diameter is the polarization maintaining optical fibre of 80 μ m should be more than 25mm.And the current ring diameter for polarization maintaining optical fibre has required to reach 10mm left and right, and can meet the requirement of using steady in a long-term.Therefore,, under the service condition of above-mentioned harshness, the polarization maintaining optical fibre of 125 μ m or 80 μ m cladding diameters has been difficult to use, and must adopt the polarization maintaining optical fibre product with better bending property.
Summary of the invention
Technical matters to be solved by this invention is just to provide a kind of thin footpath panda type polarization-preserving fiber, has outstanding bending property and long-term stability in use, can be applied to the fields such as miniature fiber gyro, fibre optic hydrophone and fiber amplifier.
For solving the problems of the technologies described above, a kind of thin footpath provided by the invention panda type polarization-preserving fiber, comprise covering, stressed zone and fibre core, described fibre core is positioned at the center of covering, described stressed zone is symmetrically distributed in fibre core both sides and is arranged in covering, and its special feature is: the diameter of described covering is 30~70 μ m.
In technique scheme, the ratio of described stressed zone diameter and cladding diameter is 0.2~0.4.
In technique scheme, the ratio of described stressed zone spacing and cladding diameter is 0.15~0.35, and the ratio of the mode field diameter M of stressed zone spacing and fiber work wavelength is 1.2~3.
In technique scheme, described stressed zone is boron doped quartz glass, and boron doping concentration is 10~25wt%.
In technique scheme, the refractive index contrast of described fibre core and covering is 0.3~2%.
In technique scheme, the mode birefringence of described thin footpath panda type polarization-preserving fiber is not less than 3.2 * 10
-4.
Compare with existing panda type polarization-preserving fiber, beneficial effect of the present invention is:
1, little fibre cladding diameter, makes optical fiber under bending condition, and surface stress significantly reduces for the impact of the optical properties such as birefringence of optical fiber, has guaranteed that optical fiber meets minor diameter bending or minor diameter around the use needs of ring;
2, little fibre cladding diameter, makes optical fiber under bending condition, and surface stress greatly reduces, and the mechanical property of optical fiber significantly improves, and can guarantee the long term life of optical fiber under small-bend radius service condition;
3, little fibre cladding diameter can guarantee that whole fibre diameter is less, so the volume of optical fiber is also much smaller than the polarization maintaining optical fibre of common 125 μ m or 80 μ m cladding diameters.Less optical fiber volume is quite important for the application of small size device, in less volume, can hold longer polarization maintaining optical fibre, has guaranteed the performance index of device;
4, to make to apply the weight of device of this optical fiber also lighter for the polarization maintaining optical fibre product of smaller size smaller.Little weight can meet the special requirement of some application, as aerospace field, just quite strict for the weight requirement of device.Little device weight can guarantee that overall system performance meets design requirement;
5, little fibre cladding diameter and fibre diameter, greatly reduces the materials'use cost of optical fiber, has improved efficiency and the cost performance of optical fiber production.
Experimental results show that, this thin footpath of the present invention panda type polarization-preserving fiber, its applicable operating wavelength range is between 200~2000nm, be particularly useful for 850nm, the operation wavelength such as 1310nm and 1550nm, and be specially adapted to the manufacture of the devices such as undersized optical fibre gyro, fibre optic hydrophone, fiber amplifier.Its minimum bend diameter can reach 10mm, and can use steadily in the long term.
Embodiment
Below in conjunction with accompanying drawing, specific embodiments of the invention are described in further detail:
As shown in Figure 1, a kind of thin footpath of the present invention panda type polarization-preserving fiber, comprises columned covering 1, stressed zone 2 and fibre core 3, and fibre core 3 is positioned at the center of covering 1, and two stressed zones 2 are symmetrically distributed in fibre core 3 both sides and are arranged in covering 1.The diameter of covering 1 is 30~70 μ m.The ratio of stressed zone 2 diameters and covering 1 diameter is 0.2~0.4.The ratio of stressed zone 2 space D and covering 1 diameter is 0.15~0.35, and according to the operation wavelength of expection, the ratio of the mode field diameter M of stressed zone 2 space D and operation wavelength should be 1.2~3.Fibre core 3 diameters are 5~7 μ m.Covering 1 is pure quartz glass, stressed zone 2 is boron doped quartz glass, boron doping concentration is 10~25wt%, fibre core 3 can be the fluorin-doped quartz glass of germanium etc., fibre core 3 is set according to operation wavelength and concrete application conditions with the refractive index contrast of covering 1, scope is 0.3~2%, and wherein refractive index contrast is
N
3for fibre core 3 refractive indexes, n
1for covering 1 refractive index.
The mode birefringence of panda type polarization-preserving fiber and stressed zone 2 doping contents, stressed zone 2 diameters, stressed zone 2 spacing are closely related, as shown in equation (1):
In formula, the mode birefringence that B is optical fiber, E and C are respectively Young modulus and the strain optical coefficients of fibre core 3 materials, can be approximately Young modulus and the strain optical coefficient of pure quartz material, α
1, α
2be respectively the thermal expansivity of stressed zone 2 and covering 1 material, T is that melt temperature and the serviceability temperature of optical fiber is poor, d, D, L are respectively covering 1 diameter of fibre core 3 diameters, stressed zone 2 spacing and the optical fiber of optical fiber, r be fibre core 3 part any points to the distance at fibre core 3 centers, θ is fibre core 3 part any points and fibre core 3 lines of centres and horizontal angle.
In analog computation, following formula (2) is all relevant with the physical property of material, wherein α
1size relevant to the boron doped concentration in stressed zone 2, be the major part that determines fiber mode birefringence size.
In addition, because fibre core 3 parts of optical fiber are relatively little, generally do as a whole taking in, therefore, in actual computation, r is generally taken as 0, so the relation between the mode birefringence of optical fiber and stressed zone 2 can be reduced to following formula (3):
Fig. 2 has illustrated normalized stressed zone 2 diameters, be that stressed zone 2 diameters are with the relation of covering 1 diameter ratio and mode birefringence, as seen from the figure, increase along with stressed zone 2 diameters, the corresponding increase of mode birefringence of optical fiber, when stressed zone 2 diameters be greater than covering 1 diameter 20% time, the mode birefringence of optical fiber is all greater than 3 * 10
-4, can meet the application demand of polarization maintaining optical fibre; Certainly, stressed zone 2 is positioned at covering 1, and its diameter also can not be excessive, and stressed zone of the present invention 2 diameters are not more than 40% of covering 1 diameter.
Fig. 3 has illustrated normalized stressed zone 2 spacing, be that stressed zone 2 spacing are with the relation of covering 1 diameter ratio and mode birefringence, as seen from the figure, minimizing along with stressed zone 2 spacing, the corresponding increase of mode birefringence of optical fiber, when stressed zone 2 spacing be less than covering 1 diameter 35% time, the mode birefringence of optical fiber is all greater than 3 * 10
-4, can meet the application demand of polarization maintaining optical fibre; Certainly, between two stressed zones 2, be provided with fibre core 3, so stressed zone 2 spacing also can not be too small, stressed zone of the present invention 2 spacing are not less than 15% of cladding diameter.
Polarization maintaining optical fibre is applied in small size device, during as undersized fiber amplifier, optical fibre gyro and fibre optic hydrophone, generally all can be curled into the fiber optic loop of minor diameter.In this case, need to consider that little bending diameter is for the impact of polarization maintaining optical fibre mode birefringence and surface stress.Following formula (4) has characterized the impact of fibre-optical bending diameter on mode birefringence:
In formula, 1 is fiber radius, and R is fiber bending radius, and λ is operation wavelength.
Fig. 4 has illustrated the relation of fibre-optical bending diameter and mode birefringence, the optical fiber of mode birefringence that as seen from the figure, the optical fiber of 30 μ m covering 1 diameters produces when the bending diameter of 10mm size and 70 μ m covering 1 diameters is similar on the impact of mode birefringence when 25mm bending diameter.The above-mentioned minimizing showing along with fibre-optical bending diameter, crooked that optical fiber birefringent affected to meeting is more and more significant.Meanwhile, along with the minimizing of fibre cladding 1 diameter, under same flexure condition, the crooked impact for fiber birefringence will reduce.Therefore,, for the application of small-bend radius, the optical fiber that covering 1 diameter is less is more favourable.
In addition, under little crooked service condition, the surface stress being produced by bending on the long-term stability in use impact of optical fiber greatly.Reason is that the micro-crack that silica fibre surface exists can produce and expand under the effect of long-term stress, finally causes the fracture of optical fiber.Formula (5) has characterized the surface stress size that the bending of optical fiber produces:
In formula, the Young modulus that E is quartz material, L is fibre cladding 1 diameter, f is fibre diameter, the bending diameter that H is optical fiber.
Fig. 5 has illustrated the relation of fibre-optical bending diameter and surface stress, as seen from the figure, the surface stress that the optical fiber of 30 μ m covering 1 diameters produces when the bending diameter of 10mm is about 0.18GPa, and the surface stress producing when the bending diameter of 25mm with the optical fiber of 70 μ m covering 1 diameters is suitable.This use state can guarantee by the Long Service Life of the optical fiber of the tension force screening of 0.7GPa (1% tension level).The above-mentioned minimizing showing along with fibre-optical bending diameter, crooked on optical fiber surface stress to affect meeting more and more significant.Meanwhile, along with the minimizing of fibre cladding 1 diameter, under same flexure condition, the crooked impact for optical fiber surface stress will reduce.Therefore,, for the application of small-bend radius, the optical fiber that covering 1 diameter is less is more favourable.
Fig. 6 is the structural representation of the optical fibre gyro of application polarization maintaining optical fibre manufacture of the present invention.Wherein, between light source 4, coupling mechanism 6, waveguide 7 and detector 5, by polarization maintaining optical fibre of the present invention, connect, polarization-maintaining fiber coil 8 is also formed by this polarization maintaining optical fibre coiling.
Specific embodiments of the invention are as follows:
Embodiment 1:
Table 1:
The thin footpath of the present invention panda type polarization-preserving fiber that four covering 1 diameters are 30 μ m is manufactured, refractive index contrast and the fibre core 3 of the geometry of optical fiber and stressed zone 2 doping and fibre core 3 vary in size, and result shows that the mode birefringence of four optical fiber all reaches 3 * 10
-4above.The fiber optic loop that the long optical fiber pine of four each 100m is coiled into 10mm diameter, the normal temperature cross-talk of measuring fiber ring is as table 1, and the polarization maintaining optical fibre of this performance can meet the application of middle low-precision optical fiber gyro.
Embodiment 2:
Table 2:
The thin footpath of the present invention panda type polarization-preserving fiber that four covering 1 diameters are 40 μ m is manufactured, refractive index contrast and the fibre core 3 of the geometry of optical fiber and stressed zone 2 doping and fibre core 3 vary in size, and result shows that the mode birefringence of four optical fiber all reaches 3 * 10
-4above.The fiber optic loop that the long optical fiber pine of four each 100m is coiled into 13mm diameter, the normal temperature cross-talk of measuring fiber ring is as table 2.The polarization maintaining optical fibre of this performance can meet the application of middle low-precision optical fiber gyro.
Embodiment 3:
Table 3:
The thin footpath of the present invention panda type polarization-preserving fiber that four covering 1 diameters are 50 μ m is manufactured, refractive index contrast and the fibre core 3 of the geometry of optical fiber and stressed zone 2 doping and fibre core 3 vary in size, and result shows that the mode birefringence of four optical fiber all reaches 3 * 10
-4above.The fiber optic loop that the long optical fiber pine of four each 100m is coiled into 15mm diameter, the normal temperature cross-talk of measuring fiber ring is as table 3.The polarization maintaining optical fibre of this performance can meet the application of middle low-precision optical fiber gyro.
Embodiment 4:
Table 4:
The thin footpath of the present invention panda type polarization-preserving fiber that four covering 1 diameters are 60 μ m is manufactured, the geometry of optical fiber and stressed zone 2 doping, and the refractive index contrast of fibre core 3 and fibre core 3 vary in size, result shows that the mode birefringence of four optical fiber all reaches 3 * 10
-4above.The fiber optic loop that the long optical fiber pine of four each 100m is coiled into 20mm diameter, the normal temperature cross-talk of measuring fiber ring is as table 4.The polarization maintaining optical fibre of this performance can meet the application of middle high-precision optical fiber gyro.
Embodiment 5:
Table 5:
The thin footpath of the present invention panda type polarization-preserving fiber that four covering 1 diameters are 70 μ m is manufactured, the geometry of optical fiber and stressed zone 2 doping, and the refractive index contrast of fibre core 3 and fibre core 3 vary in size, result shows that the mode birefringence of four optical fiber all reaches 3 * 10
-4above.The fiber optic loop that the long optical fiber pine of four each 100m is coiled into 25mm diameter, the normal temperature cross-talk of measuring fiber ring is as table 5.The polarization maintaining optical fibre of this performance can meet the application of high-precision optical fiber gyro.