Compaction in optical fibres and fibre Bragg gratings under nuclear reactor high neutron and gamma fluence

In the framework of the development by CEA and SCK·CEN of a Fabry Perot Sensor (FPS) able to measure dimensional changes in Material Testing Reactor (MTR), the first goal of the SAKE 1 (Smirnof extention - Additional Keytests on Elongation of glass fibres) irradiation was to measure the linear compaction of single mode fibres under high fast neutron fluence. Indeed, the compaction of the fibre which forms one side of the Fabry Perot cavity, may in particular cause a noticeable measurement error. An accurate quantification of this effect is then required to predict the radiation-induced drift and optimize the sensor design. To achieve this, an innovative approach was used. Approximately seventy uncoated fibre tips (length: 30 to 50 mm) have been prepared from several different fibre samples and were installed in the SCK·CEN BR2 reactor (Mol Belgium). After 22 days of irradiation a total fast (E > 1 MeV) fluence of 3 to 5×10¹⁹ n_fast/cm², depending on the sample location, was accumulated. The temperature during irradiation was 291°C, which is not far from the condition of the intended FPS use. A precise measurement of each fibre tip length was made before the irradiation and compared to the post irradiation measurement highlighting a decrease of the fibres´ length corresponding to about 0.25% of linear compaction. The amplitude of the changes is independent of the capsule, which could mean that the compaction effect saturates even at the lowest considered fluence. In the prospect of performing distributed temperature measurement in MTR, several fibre Bragg gratings written using a femtosecond laser have been also irradiated. All the gratings were written in radiation hardened fibres, and underwent an additional treatment with a procedure enhancing their resistance to ionizing radiations. A special mounting made it possible to test the reflection and the transmission of the gratings on fibre samples cut down to 30 to 50 mm. The comparison of measurements made before and after the irradiation, at the same temperature, allowed us to measure the loss in reflectivity as well as the Bragg wavelength drift. The results are quite promising for some of the investigated gratings.