Fiber Optical Sensor Systems (FS)

Core Competencies

The core skills lie in the development and production of innovative, miniaturized and fiber optic sensors and sensor networks, nanophotonic solution strategies for industrial applications in process control, process optimization for use in safety engineering, and intelligent sensorics in offshore wind energy plants and power cables.

Intelligent cables through fiber-optic sensor systems for controlling load on wind energy plants and power cables, in order to forecast any possible outages at an early stage. For example, By means of optical processes, variables in cables such as spatially resolved temperate profiles, mechanical load and ozone concentrations are measured continuously as dimensions for corona discharge and then evaluated via the sensor network.

Current R&D Foci

Miniaturized fiber optic photoacoustic sensors for highly sensitive gas diagnostics and gas analytics in:

• the controlling of industrial processes (for example, for the early identification of fires, methane detection in mines)
• safety engineering (e.g. highly sensitive and selective detection of volatile explosive substances and acetylene detection in high-performance transformers)
• bio-med analyses (e.g. analysis of respiratory gas, measuring of oxygen or acetone) using photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS),cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) and multi-pass absorption spectroscopy (MAS).

Connected with the University connections

The department has access to the facilities of its cooperation partners in Goslar using their equipment to provide customized sensor concepts in the form of experimental models and small batch runs for industrial users to and to test them in prototype plants jointly with the users.

The Goslar-based department for Fiber Optics Sensor Systems was established in 2009 and maintains close connections to the department for Applied Photonics at the Institute of Physics and Physical Technologies at the Technical University Clausthal (TUC). It also cooperates interdisciplinarily with the Laser Applications Center at the TUC and the Energy Research Center for Lower Saxony (EFZN), likewise in Goslar.

The department is under the management of Prof. Dr. rer. Nat. Wolfgang Schade.