The effectiveness of metal coating on FBG sensor sensitivity at cryogenic temperature

The very low thermal expansion coefficient of silica at cryogenic temperature prevents the use of Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors for high resolution temperature monitoring in cryogenic environments involving liquid gases or space applications. To overcome such limitations sensors have been coated with different metals to improve the measurement sensitivity in the very low temperature region, i.e. 4.2-35 K. Various coatings have been deposited by electrowinning on the external fibre surface after aluminium pre-coating. Full characterization of this new type of sensor is described in the paper