U.S.-Federal Republic of Germany Cooperative Research in Optical Fibers for Sensor Applications

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This award supports Professor Theodore F. Morse and a graduate student from Brown University for several short term research visits to Ruhr University in Bochum, West Germany, to collaborate with Professor Gerhard Schiffner, head of the Opto-Electronics Laboratory and Professor Martin Fiebig, head of the Heat and Mass Transfer Laboratory. They are collaborating in several aspects of the design, fabrication and testing of novel optical fibers for sensor and other opto-electronic applications. Brown is one of the few U.S. universities equipped for the fabrication of such special sensor fibers. Their research program emphasizes new techniques of preform fabrication, the study of specially doped preforms for use as sensors, fiber lasers, polarization maintaining fibers, and studies of stress induced effects in fibers. They are also studying how processing affects the manner in which rare earth dopants are incorporated into a glass matrix. Prof Schiffner has extensive experience in opto-electronics, special fibers, applications of fiber sensors, and fiber lasers. Collaboration with his lab will include a study of frequency doubling in silica based fibers, using a variety of dopants to increase efficiency of second harmonic conversion. This will be helpful in guiding the special fiber designs at Brown to achieve optimum performance in specific sensor applications. The main focus of the cooperative research with Prof. Fiebig will be fundamental studies of the fluid mechanics, combustion and deposition mechanisms responsible for the success of preform fabrication by the Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition Process (MCVD). Significant advances in state of the art materials research should result from the interdisciplinary expertise and facilities possessed by these collaborators. While the technology of silica communications fiber is maturing, the potential for useful specialty fibers for sensors, lasers, and nonlinear optics is largely untapped. Optical fiber sensors require a multidisciplinary approach with expertise in waveguide propagation, materials properties and fabrication. The proposed research to enhance processing techniques to achieve increased purity, and also to incorporate rare earth dopants to produce the asymmetry needed for a variety of nonlinear fiber devices, is at the forefront of this rapidly moving field.