Systems and methods of dispersion compensation in an optical device are disclosed. A holographic optical element may include a set of different holograms in a grating medium. Each hologram in the set may have a corresponding grating vector with a grating frequency and direction. The directions of the grating vectors may vary as a function of the grating frequency. Different holograms in the set may diffract light in a particular direction so that the light emerges from a boundary of the grating medium in a single given direction regardless of wavelength. A prism may be used to couple light into the grating medium. The prism may be formed using materials having dispersion properties that are similar to the dispersion properties of the grating material. The prism may have an input face that receives perpendicular input light. The prism may include multiple portions having different refractive indices.

Provided is an optical probe that includes an optical waveguide having a core layer and a cladding layer formed so as to cover the core layer, and a support member that supports an end portion of the optical waveguide. In the core layer, an optical waveguide core and a diffraction grating are provided. The diffraction grating is provided at an end of the optical waveguide core, has an input/output surface through which light is output to the outside or input from the outside, and converts the optical axis direction in a range between a light propagation direction in which light is propagated through the optical waveguide core and the input/output direction of light to/from the input/output surface. The support member supports the diffraction grating in such a manner that the input/output surface faces toward a predetermined direction.

A method for estimating an environmental parameter includes transmitting a first interrogation signal into an optical fiber, receiving a reflected return signal including light reflected from one or more of the plurality of FBG's in the fiber and receiving at a processor data describing the reflected return signal. The received data is comparted to expected data to determine a shift in wavelength of light reflected for one or more of the plurality of FBGs and a change in a length of a dead zone of the optical fiber based on the comparison is also determined. From this, estimates of locations two or more of the plurality of FBG's are formed.

A bending detecting system includes a light guide, a first grating and a light detector. The light guide has elongated shape and is configured to guide an incident light in a propagating direction. The light guide includes a core and a cladding disposed around the core. The first grating is disposed in a boundary area, the boundary area including an outer surface of the core, and an adjacent area that is adjacent to the outer surface. The first grating includes a first periodic structure along the propagating direction with a first pitch, and is configured to generate a first diffracted light from the incident light. The light detector is configured to detect the first diffracted light from the first grating, and detect a bending of the light guide based upon an optical feature amount of the first diffracted light.

A composite material packaged fiber grating sensor and a manufacturing method thereof. The sensor includes a fiber grating sensor component, a composite material coverage layer, a resin package layer and a composite material substrate layer. In the sensor, a temperature fiber grating and a strain fiber grating are packaged in a composite material structure, so that the structure is light and simple, its computability with the composite material is good, the measurement accuracy is high, and the survival rate and the service life of the installed sensor can be greatly improved, the sensor component can be externally pasted on to or inter-implanted in a composite material structural part, and can be applied to the distributed online health monitoring on the structural part. The manufacturing method of the composite material packaged fiber grating sensor is simple, efficient and stable, and is suitable for rapid mass production by enterprises.

An optical transmission system according to the present disclosure is a mode multiplexed optical transmission system using a multi-mode optical fiber in which a plurality of propagation modes propagate as a transmission line, the optical transmission system including an optical fiber transmission line (83) that includes an optical fiber with two or more propagation modes; and a plurality of mode converters (91) that are configured to generate mode coupling between at least one pair of the propagation modes, in which a variation in an installation interval of the plurality of mode converters (91) is equal to or less than a threshold value determined by the transmission line length (Lt) of the optical fiber transmission line (83).

Embodiments of an optical assembly and methods of making it are provided. The optical assembly includes a first waveguide, a second waveguide, and an optical adhesive for transmitting optical signals between the first waveguide and the second waveguide. The adhesive includes about 20% to about 60% by volume of first monomers. The first monomers have at least two acrylate or methacrylate groups. The optical adhesive also includes about 40% to about 80% by volume of second monomers. The second monomers have at least one fluorine atom and at least one acrylate or methacrylate group. The optical adhesive has a refractive index of from about 1.40 to about 1.55, and in the temperature range of about 10 C. to about 85 C., the refractive index of the optical adhesive has a thermal drift dn/dT of less than the absolute magnitude of |410.sup.4/ C.| and the sign of that value is negative.

There is described a method for tracking a patient in a coordinate system of a surgical tool using an optical waveguide modeling system having one multicore optical fiber with a portion attached to the surgical tool and a portion attached to the patient. The method generally includes receiving a patient model representing a shape and orientation of at least one of a limb and a bone of the patient, generating a waveguide model representing a shape and orientation of the multicore optical fiber as attached to the surgical tool and to the patient, and tracking the patient model in the coordinate system by registering the patient model in the coordinate system using the waveguide model and known spatial relationships relating to the surgical tool, the portion of the multicore optical fiber attached to the surgical tool, and the portion of the multicore optical fiber attached to the patient.

A photodynamic therapy (PDT) system includes an elongated interventional device with a bundle of optical fibers forming respective light exit ports which can be individually accessed. The bundle has an optical shape sensing fiber arranged for sensing position and orientation of the light exit ports. A processor is configured to generate a light dose signal to allow generation of light outputs to the optical fibers. The light dose signal is generated in response to the determined position and orientation of the light exit ports, and three-dimensional body anatomy image information obtained by a first image modality. The processor is also configured to take image information regarding distribution of a photo sensitizer in the body tissue as input, as well as take into account image information regarding a concentration of oxygen in the body tissue.

There is provided an optical fiber for providing increased sensitivity in sensing applications by increasing the Rayleigh backscatter coefficient of the fiber while maintaining tolerable levels of signal attenuation (e.g., less than 20% over 10 km). Such an optical fiber comprises a core, a first cladding layer and a second cladding layer. The core comprises at least one core dopant selected from the range of: germanium, phosphorus, aluminium, boron, fluorine. The at least one core dopant is used to increase the core refractive index and enhance the core Rayleigh backscatter coefficient. The first cladding layer comprises at least one dopant selected from: germanium, phosphorus, aluminium, boron, fluorine; wherein at least one first cladding layer dopant is used to reduce the first cladding layer refractive index. The signal attenuation generated in the fiber is less than 20% over 1 km.