Extensible multi-wavelength interrogation method for arbitrary cavities in low-fineness multi-cavity Fabry-Pérot interferometric sensors.

To the best of our knowledge, a novel extensible multi-wavelength (EMW) method to interrogate arbitrary cavities in low-fineness fiber-optic multi-cavity Fabry-Pérot interferometric (LFMFPI) sensors is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Based on the derived model of the LFMFPI sensor with any amount of cascaded cavities, theoretically, variation in each cavity of a LFMFPI sensor can be extracted simultaneously once the necessary parameters are acquired in advance. The feasibility of this method is successfully demonstrated in simulations and experiments utilizing LFMFPI sensors. In experiments with the LFMFPI sensor, optical path differences (OPD) of 78 nm and 2.95 µm introduced by temperature variation in two cavities, and the OPD induced by vibration with the amplitude from 5.891 nm to 38.116 nm were extracted, respectively. The EMW method is potential in multi-parameter sensing for pressure, vibration, and temperature.

Probe type TFBG-excited SPR fiber sensor for simultaneous measurement of multiple ocean parameters assisted by CFBG.

The tilted fiber Bragg grating(TFBG), chirped fiber Bragg grating(CFBG), Vernier effect and metal surface plasmon resonance(SPR) effect are effectively combined to form a probe type fiber sensor for simultaneous measurement of seawater salinity, temperature and depth(STD). The SPR effect excited by the TFBG is achieved by covering a gold layer around the TFBG, which is used to measure the refractive index (RI) of seawater. The core mode of TFBG is used to detect the change of seawater temperature and the measurement of TFBG reflection spectrum is realized by inscribing a CFBG after the TFBG, which makes the sensor have a probe type design and more beneficial to practical applications. The fusion of quartz micro-spheres on the end face of the sensing fiber and the parallel connection of an Fabry Perot(F-P) interference cavity enables the use of Vernier effect to detect the depth of the ocean. Femtosecond laser line-by-line method is used to the inscribing of TFBG, which allows the grating parameters to be changed flexibly depending on the desired spectrum. The experimental results show that the temperature sensitivity is 10.82pm/°C, the salinity sensitivity is 0.122nm/g/Kg, the depth sensitivity is 116.85 pm/m and the depth can be tested to 1000 m or even deeper.

Fabrication of an all-silica microsphere-lens on optical fiber for free-space light coupling and sensing in extreme environments.

In this paper, an all-silica microsphere-lens was designed and fabricated on the fiber end face, which can effectively improve the coupling efficiency of free-space light. In the production process, a coreless silica fiber with specific length was spliced on the end face of the fiber and melted by a CO2 laser fusion splicer. Due to the effect of surface tension, the coreless silica fiber would form a microsphere-lens on the fiber end face and the diameter of the microsphere-lens could be adjusted by controlling the light-passing time of the CO2 laser fusion splicer. Through experiments, it can be found that the 3 dB bandwidth optical coupling distance of the microsphere-lens with a diameter of 270 µm is about 200 µm, and the focus depth is about 450 µm. In order to verify the feasibility of using the microsphere-lens in the fiber-optic Fabry-Perot sensors, a Fabry-Perot interferometer was constructed by using the microsphere-lens and the single-mode fiber end face. The experimental results showed that the interference spectrum of the Fabry-Perot interferometer has a good contrast ratio. Integrating the advantages of all-silica structure, simple manufacturing process, low cost, small size, and sturdy construction, the proposed microsphere-lens is expected to be a potential candidate for free-space light coupling and fiber-optic sensors in extreme environments.

An LC Wireless Passive Pressure Sensor Based on Single-Crystal MgO MEMS Processing Technique for High Temperature Applications.

An LC wireless passive pressure sensor based on a single-crystalline magnesium oxide (MgO) MEMS processing technique is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for applications in environmental conditions of 900 °C. Compared to other high-temperature resistant materials, MgO was selected as the sensor substrate material for the first time in the field of wireless passive sensing because of its ultra-high melting point (2800 °C) and excellent mechanical properties at elevated temperatures. The sensor mainly consists of inductance coils and an embedded sealed cavity. The cavity length decreases with the applied pressure, leading to a monotonic variation in the resonant frequency of the sensor, which can be retrieved wirelessly via a readout antenna. The capacitor cavity was fabricated using a MgO MEMS technique. This MEMS processing technique, including the wet chemical etching and direct bonding process, can improve the operating temperature of the sensor. The experimental results indicate that the proposed sensor can stably operate at an ambient environment of 22-900 °C and 0-700 kPa, and the pressure sensitivity of this sensor at room temperature is 14.52 kHz/kPa. In addition, the sensor with a simple fabrication process shows high potential for practical engineering applications in harsh environments.

Dual-wavelength demodulation technique for interrogating a shortest cavity in multi-cavity fiber-optic Fabry-Pérot sensors.

This paper demonstrates, for the first time, a novel demodulation technique that can be applied for interrogating a shortest cavity in multi-cavity Fabry-Pérot (F-P) sensors. In this demodulation technique, using an amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) light source and two optical fiber broadband filters, the interference only occurs in a shortest F-P cavity that is shorter than the half of the coherence length. Using a signal calibration algorithm, two low-coherence interference optical signals with similar coherence lengths were calibrated to obtain two quadrature signals. Then, the change in the cavity length of the shortest F-P cavity was interrogated by the two quadrature signals and the arctangent algorithm. The experimental results show that the demodulation technique successfully extracted 1 kHz and 500 Hz vibration signals with 39.28 µm and 64.84 µm initial cavity lengths, respectively, in a multi-cavity F-P interferometer. The demodulation speed is up to 500 kHz, and the demodulation technique makes it possible for multi-cavity F-P sensors to measure dynamic and static parameters simultaneously. The results show that the demodulation technique has wide application potential in the dynamic measurement of multi-cavity F-P sensors.

High-Consistency Optical Fiber Fabry-Perot Pressure Sensor Based on Silicon MEMS Technology for High Temperature Environment.

This paper proposes a high-temperature optical fiber Fabry-Perot pressure sensor based on the micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS). The sensing structure of the sensor is composed of Pyrex glass wafer and silicon wafer manufactured by mass micromachining through anodic bonding process. The separated sensing head and the gold-plated fiber are welded together by a carbon dioxide laser to form a fiber-optic Fabry-Perot high temperature pressure sensor, which uses a four-layer bonding technology to improve the sealing performance of the Fabry-Perot cavity. The test system of high temperature pressure sensor is set up, and the experimental data obtained are calculated and analyzed. The experimental results showed that the maximum linearity of the optical fiber pressure sensor was 1% in the temperature range of 20-400 °C. The pressure sensor exhibited a high linear sensitivity of about 1.38 nm/KPa at room temperature at a range of pressures from approximarely 0-to 1 MPa. The structure of the sensor is characterized by high consistency, which makes the structure more compact and the manufacturing process more controllable.

MEMS-Based Reflective Intensity-Modulated Fiber-Optic Sensor for Pressure Measurements.

A reflective intensity-modulated fiber-optic sensor based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for pressure measurements is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor consists of two multimode optical fibers with a spherical end, a quartz tube with dual holes, a silicon sensitive diaphragm, and a high borosilicate glass substrate (HBGS). The integrated sensor has a high sensitivity due to the MEMS technique and the spherical end of the fiber. The results show that the sensor achieves a pressure sensitivity of approximately 0.139 mV/kPa. The temperature coefficient of the proposed sensor is about 0.87 mV/°C over the range of 20 °C to 150 °C. Furthermore, due to the intensity mechanism, the sensor has a relatively simple demodulation system and can respond to high-frequency pressure in real time. The dynamic response of the sensor was verified in a 1 kHz sinusoidal pressure environment at room temperature.

An In-Line Fiber Optic Fabry-Perot Sensor for High-Temperature Vibration Measurement.

An in-line fiber optic Fabry-Perot (FP) sensor for high-temperature vibration measurement is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in this paper. We constructed an FP cavity and a mass on single-mode fibers (SMFs) by fusion, and together they were inserted into a hollow silica glass tube (HST) to form a vibration sensor. The radial dimension of the sensor was less than 500 µm. With its all-silica structure, the sensor has the prospect of measuring vibration in high-temperature environments. In our test, the sensor had a resonance frequency of 165 Hz. The voltage sensitivity of the sensor system was about 11.57 mV/g and the nonlinearity was about 2.06%. The sensor could work normally when the temperature was below 500 °C, and the drift of the phase offset point with temperature was 0.84 pm/°C.

D-shaped photonic crystal fiber refractive index sensor based on surface plasmon resonance.

A type of D-shaped photonic crystal fiber sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is proposed for refractive index sensing and analyzed by the finite element method. The SPR effect between surface plasmon polariton modes and fiber core modes of the designed D-shaped photonic crystal fiber is used to measure the refractive index of the analyte. Numerical results show that the sensor can detect a range of refractive index ranging from 1.33 to 1.38. When the thickness of metal film is t=20 nm, the maximum sensitivity of 10,493 nm/RIU is obtained with a very high resolution of 9.53×10-6 RIU. The good sensing performance makes the proposed sensor a competitive candidate for environmental, biological, and biochemical sensing applications.

High Sensitivity Refractive Index Sensor Based on Dual-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber with Hexagonal Lattice.

A refractive index sensor based on dual-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with hexagonal lattice is proposed. The effects of geometrical parameters of the PCF on performances of the sensor are investigated by using the finite element method (FEM). Two fiber cores are separated by two air holes filled with the analyte whose refractive index is in the range of 1.33-1.41. Numerical simulation results show that the highest sensitivity can be up to 22,983 nm/RIU(refractive index unit) when the analyte refractive index is 1.41. The lowest sensitivity can reach to 21,679 nm/RIU when the analyte refractive index is 1.33. The sensor we proposed has significant advantages in the field of biomolecule detection as it provides a wide-range of detection with high sensitivity.

High-birefringence photonic crystal fiber polarization filter based on surface plasmon resonance.

In this paper, we designed a C2v-symmetry-structured photonic crystal fiber with triangular lattice and Au-filled air holes. The finite element method is used to analyze the dispersion and confinement loss characteristics of the core mode and the surface plasmon mode of the metal wire. In this work, we found that the positions of resonance peaks and the resonance strength of core mode and surface plasmon mode can be well adjusted by changing the pitch between the cladding air holes and the diameters of the air holes or metal wires around the core. By optimizing the parameters of the fiber structure, a polarization filter at the communication band is designed. At the wavelength of 1.31 µm, which is located in the communication band, the fundamental mode in X pol can be filtered with the diameter of the metal wire d(m)=1.2 µm. When d(m)=1.4 µm, the fundamental mode in Y pol can be filtered at the wavelength of 1.55 µm, which is also located in the communication band. Compared with the ordinary single-polarization and single-mode photonic crystal fiber, the fiber we proposed in this paper can selectively filter out the polarized light in one direction by adjusting the wire diameter. It is meaningful for the development of the polarization filter in the communication band.

Design of a polarized filtering photonic-crystal fiber with gold-coated air holes.

A novel design of a gold-coated photonic-crystal fiber (PCF) is studied by using the finite element method. The cross-section structure of the PCF is composed of a square lattice of air holes in which two air holes are gold coated, and the air-hole layout is modified. The resonance strength and the impact of structural parameters of the PCF on the polarization filter characteristics are studied. Numerical results show that the resonance strength and wavelengths are different in two polarized directions. The resonance strengths that we obtain can reach a value of 720 dB/cm at the wavelength of 1.31 µm. When the fiber length is 400 µm, the crosstalk can reach a value of 247.2 dB at the wavelength of 1.31 µm, which can be applied in many polarization filter devices. And when the length of fiber is longer than 200 µm, the crosstalk is better than 20 dB with wavelength ranges from 1.2 to 2 µm. Meanwhile, we can realize the filtering effect with a very short fiber.

Broadband single-polarization single-mode photonic crystal fibers with three different background materials.

A modified structure of single-polarization single-mode (SPSM) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with different background materials is presented and analyzed by using the full-vector finite-element method. Simulation results confirmed that the proposed PCF can realize low-loss SPSM on three wavebands with the same structure and different background materials. The wavebands are 1.46-1.60 µm for silica-based fiber, 1.97-2.3 µm for lead silicate glass fiber, and 3.16-3.58 µm for chalcogenide glass fiber. For three PCFs with different background materials, only the slow-axis mode exists and the confinement loss is less than 100 dB/m in the SPSM wavebands.

Polarization filter characteristics of photonic crystal fibers with square lattice and selectively filled gold wires.

A novel design of Au-filled photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with square lattice has been proposed in this paper. The resonance strength of the surface plasmon mode and the impacts of structural parameters of the PCF on the polarization filter characteristics are studied through the finite element method. Numerical results show that the sizes of Au wires and the symmetry of the air holes near the fiber core have a great effect on the polarization filter characteristics. In the optimization process, it was found that the resonance strengths can reach 279.10 and 399.18 dB/cm at wavelengths of 1.02 µm and 1.55 µm, respectively, which can be applied in many polarization filter devices.