There is a full PhD studentships at the Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Environment, Northumbria University, UK.

The aim of the project is to employ innovative wavelength diversity technique in distributed fibre sensor system to improve the accuracy of the measured gain while extending its range. There is a good opportunity in this project to engage with industry (Nexus which run the Newcastle upon Tyne Metro system) to implement field trials.

In optical fibre communications, light scattering is omnipresent in the fibre regardless of the intensity of the optical power propagating through the fibre. Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is known to be the dominant optical fibre nonlinearity. At sufficiently high incident power, SBS will convert transmitted light in the fibre to a scattered, Stokes-shifted reflection. These reflected signals are sensitive to the strain and temperature variations experienced by the optical fibre.

These attributes allowed the optical fibre to be used as a distributed sensor. This type of sensor is attractive to the railway/underground industry where the distributed sensor can be installed to achieve real-time rail-track monitoring. This monitoring will result in swift repair and ensure high usage of the rail track.

Informal Enquiries

Enquiries regarding this studentship should be made to: wai-pang.ng@northumbria.ac.uk