Study of radiation hardness of optical fibers

Date

2004-08

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

Optical fiber manufacturing is a multibillion dollar industry today, and optical fibers have found diverse applications, such as telecommunication, medicine, nuclear and chemical industries, and many others. There is no doubt that this trend will continue. Fused-silica core optical fibers are being used in applications where there is high ionizing radiation and/or neutron fluence, especially because fused-silica is a radiation hard material. The radiation damage to optical fibers is a complicated phenomenon and the exact nature of color centers formation is not well-known. In this study, we attempted to address a few but fundamental questions currently studied in the community: (1) How radiation hard is the polymer-clad, fused-silica core optical fiber? How does the induced attenuation depend on the wavelength of light transported by the fiber? (2) How does the radiation dose rate affect the total optical transmission? What is the wavelength dependence of this phenomenon? (3) Is there a dynamic but stable transmission recovery in these types of fibers? (4) What are the implications of the obtained results to the performance of the CMS forward calorimeter at the Large Hadron Collider?

Description

Keywords

Radiation dosimetry, Optical fibers -- Effect of radiation on, Optical fibers -- Testing

Citation