EFFICIENT COMPUTATIONAL MODEL FOR LIGHT PROPAGATION IN HIGH SCATTERING NANOPARTICLES-DOPED OPTICAL FIBERS

Abstract

In recent advancements, rare Earth-doped transparent glass ceramic optical fibers were revealed to have high backscattering. This effect, which can be efficiently regulated by the size and distribution of doped nanoparticles in the fiber core, presents both challenges and opportunities in optical fiber applications. Recent researches suggest that high scattering can be exploited in strain and temperature mapping, and shape sensing. To predict and simulate the effects of nanoparticle doping on scattering, the computational method Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) for three dimensional light propagation in the segments of optical fiber was employed. Since the existing numerical methods are computationally inefficient for nanoparticle-doped optical fibers due to the uniqueness of geometry, this project aims to fill this gap by developing a new simplified method based on MIT Electromagnetic Equation Propagation (MEEP) library implemented using Python programming language to accurately map and predict scattering effects. This implementation will provide a Transmission Spectra, which is a valuable tool for optimizing nanoparticle-doped optical fiber designs and maximizing their performance in various applications for researchers, engineers, and material scientists who are working in optical fiber manufacturing.