Creation of an Internal Cladding in Sapphire Optical Fiber Using the 6Li(n, α)3H Reaction

Brandon Augustus Wilson; Thomas E. Blue

doi:10.1109/JSEN.2017.2756448

Creation of an Internal Cladding in Sapphire Optical Fiber Using the ⁶Li(n, α)³H Reaction

Brandon Augustus Wilson, Thomas E. Blue

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

The focus of this work is to extend optical frequency domain reflectometry sensing to sapphire optical fiber, by creating a cladding in the fiber. A cladding was created by irradiating a sapphire optical fiber, which was surrounded by an annulus of Li-6 enriched lithium carbonate (Li₂CO₃) powder, in The Ohio State University Research Reactor. The ⁶Li(n, α)³H reaction created high energy alpha particles and tritons that irradiated the fiber simultaneously to a depth of 24 microns along the entire periphery of the sapphire fiber, thereby slightly reducing the index of refraction in the fiber's periphery and creating a cladding within the fiber. Transmitted light intensity profiles show that the ion implanted cladding made the fiber's intensity profile nearly single mode. The cladding survived to the highest temperature that was tested (1500 °C). The cladding made the fiber sufficiently single mode that the cladded sapphire fiber, when read out with an optical backscatter reflectometer, produced distributed temperature measurements along the entire length of the fiber.

Original language	English
Article number	8049262
Pages (from-to)	7433-7439
Number of pages	7
Journal	IEEE Sensors Journal
Volume	17
Issue number	22
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2017.2756448
State	Published - Nov 15 2017
Externally published	Yes

Funding

Manuscript received August 4, 2017; revised August 31, 2017; accepted September 4, 2017. Date of publication September 26, 2017; date of current version October 24, 2017. This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy Nuclear University Programs under the project “Testing of sapphire optical fiber and sensors in intense radiation fields, when subjected to very high temperatures,” under Contract 00127692, and in part under the Department of Energy Integrated Research Project, “Advanced Instrumentation for Transient Reactor Testing” by the University of Wisconsin-Madison under Award 572K364. The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication was Dr. Minghong Yang. (Corresponding author: Brandon Augustus Wilson.) The authors are with the Nuclear Engineering Program, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 USA (e-mail:[email protected]; [email protected]). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2017.2756448

Funders	Funder number
Department of Energy Integrated Research Project
Department of Energy Nuclear University Programs	00127692
University of Wisconsin-Madison	572K364

Keywords

Sapphire optical fiber
distributed temperature sensing
optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR)
sapphire fiber cladding

Access to Document

10.1109/JSEN.2017.2756448

Cite this

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title = "Creation of an Internal Cladding in Sapphire Optical Fiber Using the 6Li(n, α)3H Reaction",

abstract = "The focus of this work is to extend optical frequency domain reflectometry sensing to sapphire optical fiber, by creating a cladding in the fiber. A cladding was created by irradiating a sapphire optical fiber, which was surrounded by an annulus of Li-6 enriched lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) powder, in The Ohio State University Research Reactor. The 6Li(n, α)3H reaction created high energy alpha particles and tritons that irradiated the fiber simultaneously to a depth of 24 microns along the entire periphery of the sapphire fiber, thereby slightly reducing the index of refraction in the fiber's periphery and creating a cladding within the fiber. Transmitted light intensity profiles show that the ion implanted cladding made the fiber's intensity profile nearly single mode. The cladding survived to the highest temperature that was tested (1500 °C). The cladding made the fiber sufficiently single mode that the cladded sapphire fiber, when read out with an optical backscatter reflectometer, produced distributed temperature measurements along the entire length of the fiber.",

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