Analysis of Single Mode Optical Fiber Cable Behavior under Neutron Irradiation Effect: Practical Application

Analysis of neutron induced attenuation within fiber cables has received more attention in this article. Overcoming the attenuation of transmitted signals should be addressed. A single mode optical fiber with pure silica core is employed in experimental analysis. The total fiber length is 40 m. This experiment is done in the second Egyptian Training Research Reactor (ETRR-2). The Neutron Beam Facility (NBF) within ETRR-2 has a flux of 1.5 × 107 n/cm2sec and thermal power of approximately 18 MW. The experiment is done at room temperature. A 20 cm length of fiber cable is directly exposed to NBF for 4 hours. The measurements of attenuation are performed using two instruments. These instruments are power meter and laser source device. The experimental measurements are done at two different spectral wavelengths of 1310 nm and 1550 nm. The measurements are done before and after neutron irradiation. A comparison between obtained results is investigated. Before irradiation, a fixed attenuation is noted. Attenuation recovery of pair 1 is noted after 1 hour at 1310 nm. However, it is attained after 2 hours for pairs 2 at 1550 nm. The attenuation is incremented with time until 2 hours. Then, it is suddenly decreased. The experimental results show better attenuation recovery within fiber cables after littlies hours depending on operating wavelength and fiber length.