Ultra-abrupt tapered fiber mach-zehnder interferometer sensors

Benye Li, Lan Jiang*, Sumei Wang, Lanying Zhou, Hai Xiao, Tsai Hai-Lung

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

73 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A fiber inline Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) consisting of ultra-abrupt fiber tapers was fabricated through a new fusion-splicing method. By fusion-splicing, the taper diameter-length ratio is around 1:1, which is much greater than those (1:10) made by stretching. The proposed fabrication method is very low cost, 1/20-1/50 of those of LPFG pair MZI sensors. The fabricated MZIs are applied to measure refractive index, temperature and rotation angle changes. The temperature sensitivity of the MZI at a length of 30 mm is 0.061 nm/°C from 30-350 °C. The proposed MZI is also used to measure rotation angles ranging from 0° to 0.55°; the sensitivity is 54.98 nm/°. The refractive index sensitivity is improved by 3-5 fold by fabricating an inline micro-trench on the fiber cladding using a femtosecond laser. Acetone vapor of 50 ppm in N2 is tested by the MZI sensor coated with MFI-type zeolite thin film. The proposed MZI sensors are capable of in situ detection in many areas of interest such as environmental management, industrial process control, and public health.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5729-5739
Number of pages11
JournalSensors
Volume11
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2011

Keywords

  • Fiber sensors
  • Mach-zehnder interferometer
  • Refractive index
  • Zeolite coating

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