Temperature Referenced Planar Bragg Grating Strain Sensor in fs-Laser Cut COC Specimen

We demonstrate a novel temperature referenced polymer Bragg grating (BG) sensor structure in planar cyclo-olefin copolymer (COC) substrate for tensile and compressive strain sensing. The sensor is based on two serial BGs UV-written into a specially designed planar COC substrate using a 248-nm-KrF laser. Successively, the temperature sensitivity and the behavior toward the tensile and compressive strain of both BGs are evaluated. Furthermore, we calculate the strain distribution in the COC specimen using a numerical simulation and discuss it with regard to the experimental results.