Setup for the in situ monitoring of the irradiation-induced effects in optical fibers in the ultraviolet-visible optical range

The paper describes a setup for in situ monitoring of the radiation-induced optical absorption and the radiation-induced luminescence, in the UV-visible spectral range (200-800 nm), for large diameter (400 μm) optical fibers. Silica and sapphire optical fibers were irradiated, at room temperature, with gamma rays (dose rate of 0.33 kGyh, total dose of 34.5 kGy) and protons (dose rate of 100 Gys, total dose of 1.8 MGy). At several moments, the irradiation was interrupted and the annealing of the radiation-induced optical absorption was observed at room temperature. The setup also makes possible the monitoring of the optical radiation-induced recovery of the optical absorption (the effect of photobleaching), as the optical fiber can be exposed at the same time to both the ionizing radiation (gamma or protons) and to the radiation of a broadband optical source. The optical absorption and radioluminescence were measured with an optical fiber multichannel spectrometer coupled to an optical fiber multiplexer. The equipment control as well as the data collection and processing were performed using the graphical programming environment LabVIEW. The paper includes several graphs illustrating the evolution of the optical absorption and radiation-induced luminescence during gamma and proton irradiation of optical fibers. © 2005 American Institute of Physics