Abstract:
This work presents an experimental investigation of the effect of chemical etching on
the refractive index (RI) sensitivity of tilted fiber Bragg gratings (TFBGs). Hydrofluoric acid (HF)
was used stepwise in order to reduce the optical fiber diameter from 125 µm to 13 µm. After each
etching step, TFBGs were calibrated using two ranges of RI solutions: the first one with high RI
variation (from 1.33679 RIU to 1.37078 RIU) and the second with low RI variation (from 1.34722 RIU
to 1.34873 RIU). RI sensitivity was analyzed in terms of wavelength shift and intensity change of
the grating resonances. The highest amplitude sensitivities obtained are 1008 dB/RIU for the high
RI range and 8160 dB/RIU for the low RI range, corresponding to the unetched TFBG. The highest
wavelength sensitivities are 38.8 nm/RIU for a fiber diameter of 100 µm for the high RI range, and
156 nm/RIU for a diameter of 40 µm for the small RI range. In addition, the effect of the etching
process on the spectral intensity of the cladding modes, their wavelength separation and sensor
linearity (R2
) were studied as well. As a result, an optimization of the etching process is provided, so
that the best trade-off between sensitivity, intensity level, and fiber thickness can be obtained.