Fiber Bragg grating inscription in novel highly strains sensitive microstructured fiber

Microstructured optical fibers (MOF) sometimes also referred to as photonic crystal fibers (PCF) have been a subject of extensive research for over a decade. This is mainly due to the fact that by changing the microstructure geometry (e.g. distribution and size of the air-holes) fiber properties can be significantly modified to better fit specific applications. In this manuscript we present a novel fiber design with three large air-holes neighboring the core and report on how the air-hole diameter influences the effective refractive index strain sensitivity. As direct measurement of the effective refractive index change may be complex and challenging, we propose to use fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) in our sensing set up. The Bragg wavelength is a function of the effective refractive index, hence the external strain changes can be monitored through the Bragg wavelength shift with a simple optical spectrometer. Furthermore we also include an analysis of the fibers temperature sensitivity.