Strain and temperature effects on erbium-doped fiber for decay-time based sensing

An experimental investigation into the strain and temperature sensitivity of the fluorescence decay time in commercial erbium-doped optical fiber has been carried out. Results show that a strain effect on the performance of temperature-based sensors using such fiber is larger than that for neodymium-doped fiber, but a little smaller than is seen in similar ytterbium-doped material. For the materials studied, the relative change in lifetime ranges from about ${\text{5×10}}^{\text{−7}}$ (for Yb) to ${\text{14×10}}^{\text{−7}}$ (for Nd) με⁻¹ and the associated error in the temperature measurement ranges from ${\text{1.8×10}}^{\text{−3}}$ (for Nd) to ${\text{6.1×10}}^{\text{−3}} \mathrm{K}{\mathrm{\mu \epsilon }}^{\text{−1}}$ for the Yb sample used. The application to simultaneous strain and temperature monitoring is discussed.