Fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer constructed by selective infiltration of two air holes in photonic crystal fiber

High sensitivity temperature sensor based on polymer-liquid modified anti-resonant reflecting guidance in silica capillary

A high sensitivity temperature sensor based on polymer and liquid modified anti-resonant reflection principle is proposed. The sensor is made of a section of liquid-filled and UV-curable adhesive coated silica capillary, sandwiched between single mode fibers. The guiding mechanism of the waveguide is affected by both the liquid inside the hollow core, and the adhesive outside the silica cladding. The location of the resonant dips are influenced by the refractive index (RI) of the liquid, while the fringe visibility (resonant strength) is tuned by the both the liquid and the adhesive. By carefully selecting the refractive index value of the infiltrated liquid, and controlling the curing time of the adhesive, sharp resonant dips can be obtained. The sensor exhibits very high temperature sensitivity against temperature. A high sensitivity of 3.369 nm/°C is achieved with an infiltration index of 1.39, in the temperature range from 25 °C to 60 °C. The detection limit of the proposed sensors are 0.04 °C. Moreover, the temperature sensitivity of the sensor is found to be decreasing with the order of resonance. The sensor is easy to fabricate and cost effective, and is applicable in both dry and wet environments, which can find wide applications in biochemical and pharmaceutical industry.

Highly sensitive temperature sensor based on a polymer-infiltrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer created in graded index fiber

A highly sensitive temperature sensor is proposed and demonstrated based on a UV-curable polymer-infiltrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) created in a graded index fiber (GIF). The device was constructed by splicing a half-pitch GIF between two single-mode fibers and creating an inner air cavity in one lateral side of the GIF core by means of femtosecond laser micromachining. The air cavity and the residual GIF core functioned as two interference arms of the MZI. Moreover, the GIF was used as a miniature in-fiber collimator to reduce insertion loss of the air cavity. Experimental results show such an MZI device has a high refractive index (RI) sensitivity of 24611.54 nm/RIU (RI=1.545-1.565). Subsequently, thermo-sensitive polymer liquid was infiltrated into the air cavity, then cured with UV illumination, and annealed at 50°C for 12 h. The infiltrated MZI exhibits a high temperature sensitivity of -13.27  nm/°C. In addition, this MZI also has excellent thermal stability and repeatability, compact structure, low insertion loss, and high fringe visibility. As such, the proposed MZI could be developed for high-accuracy temperature measurements in many areas such as biomedical or oceanographic applications.

Ultrasensitive Mach-Zehnder Interferometric Temperature Sensor Based on Liquid-Filled D-Shaped Fiber Cavity

A liquid-filled D-shaped fiber (DF) cavity serving as an in-fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated for temperature sensing with ultrahigh sensitivity. The miniature MZI is constructed by splicing a segment of DF between two single-mode fibers (SMFs) to form a microcavity (MC) for filling and replacement of various refractive index (RI) liquids. By adjusting the effective RI difference between the DF and MC (the two interference arms), experimental and calculated results indicate that the interference spectra show different degrees of temperature dependence. As the effective RI of the liquid-filled MC approaches that of the DF, temperature sensitivity up to −84.72 nm/°C with a linear correlation coefficient of 0.9953 has been experimentally achieved for a device with the MC length of 456 μm, filled with liquid RI of 1.482. Apart from ultrahigh sensitivity, the proposed MCMZI device possesses additional advantages of its miniature size and simple configuration; these features make it promising and competitive in various temperature sensing applications, such as consumer electronics, biological treatments, and medical diagnosis.

Highly sensitive temperature sensor using a Sagnac loop interferometer based on a side-hole photonic crystal fiber filled with metal

A highly sensitive temperature sensor based on an all-fiber Sagnac loop interferometer combined with metal-filled side-hole photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is proposed and demonstrated. PCFs containing two side holes filled with metal offer a structure that can be modified to create a change in the birefringence of the fiber by the expansion of the filler metal. Bismuth and indium were used to examine the effect of filler metal on the temperature sensitivity of the fiber-optic temperature sensor. It was found from measurements that a very high temperature sensitivity of -9.0  nm/°C could be achieved with the indium-filled side-hole PCF. The experimental results are compared to numerical simulations with good agreement. It is shown that the high temperature sensitivity of the sensor is attributed to the fiber microstructure, which has a significant influence on the modulation of the birefringence caused by the expansion of the metal-filled holes.

Photonic crystal fiber modal interferometer based on thin-core-fiber mode exciter

A thin-core-fiber excited photonic crystal fiber modal interferometer has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. By employing a thin-core fiber as the mode exciter, both of the core and cladding modes propagate in the photonic crystal fiber and interfere with each other. The experimental results show that the transmission dips corresponding to different-order modes have various strain responses with opposite shift directions. The strain sensitivity could be improved to 58.57  pm/με for the applied strain from 0 to 491 με by utilizing the wavelength interval between the dips with opposite shift directions. Moreover, due to the pure silica property of the employed photonic crystal fiber, the proposed fiber modal interferometer exhibits a low-temperature sensitivity of about 0.56  pm/°C within a temperature range from 26.4°C (room temperature) to 70°C. Additionally, the proposed fiber modal interferometer has several advantages, such as good stability, compact structure, and simple fabrication. Therefore, it is more applicable for strain measurement with reducing temperature cross-sensitivity.

Effect of waist diameter and twist on tapered asymmetrical dual-core fiber MZI filter

A compact in-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) filter fabricated from custom-designed asymmetrical dual-core fiber is numerically analyzed in detail and experimentally verified. The asymmetrical dual-core fiber has core diameters and a core pitch of 6.9, 6, and 19.9 μm, respectively. The fiber tapering technique is introduced to fuse the originally uncoupled cores into strong coupling tapered regions. The length and diameter of the waist region have a close impact on the splitting ratio, which further affects the spectral properties of the MZI filter. The field evolution with varied waist parameters is characterized by the finite element method and beam propagation method. Repeatable comb filters with ∼15  dB extinction ratio are successfully achieved under the guidance of simulated optimum conditions. The twist-induced circular birefringence gives rise to a retardance that causes the spectral shifts of the MZI filter. The theoretical and experimental results confirm that the relative wavelength shift is proportional to the retardance, which follows a sinc function in the limit of a large twist rate.

Control and design of fiber birefringence characteristics based on selective-filled hybrid photonic crystal fibers

We demonstrated a kind of birefringence-controllable hybrid photonic crystal fibers (HPCFs) by selectively infiltrating air holes of PCFs with index-tunable liquids processing higher index than silica background. Detailed theoretical investigations on mode couplings from fundamental core mode to high-index-liquid-rod modes and birefringence properties of several HPCFs were presented. Strong wavelength dependence of phase and group birefringence was found, and HPCFs with different arrangements of high index liquid rods possess distinct birefringence characteristics. Then, the Sagnac interferometers (SIs) based on two typical HPCFs with different liquid-rod arrangements were theoretically and experimentally studied. The results indicated the SIs exhibit different transmission spectra and temperature responses due to the distinct birefringence features of HPCFs. A temperature sensitivity of -45.8 nm/°C at 56.5 °C was achieved using one HPCF, and a sensitivity of -11.6 nm/°C from 65 °C to 85 °C was achieved using the other HPCF. The thermal tunable HPCFs with birefringence-controllable properties will provide great potential for a variety of tunable optical devices and sensors.

Load-insensitive temperature sensor based on azobenzene-chloroform-solution-filled microstructured optical fiber

A solid-core microstructured optical fiber is infiltrated with the Dispersed Yellow 7 and chloroform mixture solution, resulting in the appearance of several transmission dips with different temperature and axial load responses. The temperature- and load-dependent spectral characteristics of these dips have been investigated and the experimental results indicate that they are pretty temperature-sensitive, but insensitive to the variation of applied axial load. Such a compact fiber-optic device with electric perturbation immunity could be employed for load-insensitive temperature sensing with high sensitivity.

Fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer based on near-elliptical core photonic crystal fiber for temperature and strain sensing

A fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer is fabricated by selectively filling liquid into one air hole of the innermost layer of a photonic crystal fiber (PCF). The refractive index of the liquid is so close to that of the background silica in the wavelength range of 1300-1600 nm that the two-mode PCF evolves into multimode PCF with an elliptically shaped core. Due to the different propagation constants, interference can occur between the fundamental mode and higher-order modes of the liquid-filled PCF. Such a device is applied in temperature and strain measurements with high sensitivities of 16.49 nm/°C and -14.595 nm/N, respectively.

Efficient and short-range light coupling to index-matched liquid-filled hole in a solid-core photonic crystal fiber

A photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with a section of one of the holes next to the solid core filled with an index-matched liquid is studied. Liquid filling alters the core geometry, which locally comprises the original silica core, the liquid channel and the silica around it. It is demonstrated that when light reaches the filled section, it periodically and efficiently couples to the liquid, via the excitation of a number of modes of the composite core, with coupling lengths ranging from tens to hundreds of microns. The resulting modal-interference-modulated spectrum shows temperature sensitivity as high as 5.35 nm/°C. The proposed waveguide geometry presents itself as an interesting way to pump and/or to probe liquid media within the fiber, combining advantages usually found separately in liquid-filled hollow-core PCFs (high light-liquid overlap) and in solid-core PCFs (low insertion losses). Therefore, pumping and luminescence guiding with a PCF filled with a Rhodamine solution is also demonstrated.