Novel interrogation technique for Tilted Fiber Bragg Gratings sensors based on single wavelength time delay measurements

A novel interrogation scheme for Tilted Fiber Bragg Gratings (TFBGs) sensors is here proposed based on single wavelength time delay measurements. To this aim, the group delay of a weakly tilted TFBG has been characterized by direct time domain measurement. The experimental characterization shows the capability of TFBGs to enable superluminal and subluminal propagation of an optical pulse in optical fibers. The sharp group delay features of the TFBGs are exploited for refractometric applications to detect the SRI variations by single wavelength time delay measurements. The obtained preliminary results demonstrate the possibility to detect SRI changes by means of single wavelength time delay measurements with a sensitivity enhanced in the range 1.33-1.40 with respect to previously reported interrogation techniques