Metal coatings on long-period fiber gratings and the implementation of an associated sensing model

A mathematical model for analyzing the temperature sensing properties of a metal-coated long-period fiber grating (LPFG) was presented. The influences of metal coatings on the temperature sensing properties of LPFGs were simulated and experimentally investigated. The effects of various material parameters were estimated using the single variable method of the Matlab 7.0 software. The simulation results showed that temperature sensitivity increased with an increasing elastic modulus, Poisson’s ratio, and thermal expansion coefficient of the coating metal. Both the experimental and simulated results showed that the thickness of the metal coating had a significant impact on the associated temperature sensing properties. The calculated temperature sensitivities of the LPFGs with Ni-coating thicknesses of 6.5, 5.2, and 7.2 μm were 57.27, 60.91, and 66.55 pm/°C, respectively; and with Cu-coating thicknesses of 3.8, 4.9, and 5.4 μm, the calculated temperature sensitivities were 58.17, 59.58, and 61.18 pm/°C, respectively. Compared to the experimental results, the relative errors in the simulation were less than 9.75%, indicating the feasibility of the new temperature sensing model.