Abstract

Fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) are promising sensors for operation in harsh environments mixing temperature and radiation constraints. Regenerated FBGs (RFBGs) are suited to perform measurements at very high temperatures (up to 1295 °C) as those encountered in nuclear reactor cores. However, only a few studies have been done regarding combined effects of radiations and temperature on RFBGs. We studied the response of such gratings under X-rays at several irradiation temperatures from 25 °C to 250 °C. Tested RFBGs have been inscribed on a pre-hydrogenated Ge-doped fiber with UV laser (KrF) using a phase mask and the regeneration has been done at 750 °C. Our results show that RFBGs are relatively radiation tolerant at 25 °C with a Bragg wavelength shift (BWS) of less than 50 pm (∼5 °C error) for a total dose of 100 kGy(SiO₂). However, at increased irradiation temperatures (>150 °C), the BWS is limited, remaining below 10 pm (<1 °C error). We also studied the influence of a pre-thermal treatment (300 °C for 5 h) on the RFBGs response as well as the influence of other irradiation parameters, such as the dose rate (1–20 Gy/s), the pre-irradiation (100 kGy) and the total dose (2 MGy) at 25 °C. Radiation induced-BWS increases with dose rate, whereas the pre-thermal treatment has no influence.