High sensitivity optical fiber temperature sensor based on Fabry-Perot interferometer and enhanced vernier effect

A high-sensitivity fiber optic temperature sensor based on the enhanced harmonic Vernier effect (HVE) is proposed, which consists of two Fabry–Perot interferometers (FPI) that are sensitive to temperature and connected in parallel. FPI1 is a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cavity formed by filling a ceramic ferrule with PDMS, and FPI2 is an air-cavity formed by inserting a single-mode fiber into a ceramic ferrule coated with PDMS film on the end face. FPI1 and FPI2 have opposite temperature responses and an approximate 2-fold free spectral range (FSR) relationship. As the temperature rises, the interference spectrum of FPI1 gradually red-shifts, while the interference spectrum of FPI2 gradually blue-shifts, resulting in an enhanced HVE. Its temperature sensitivity is much higher than that of a single FPI, and the amplification rate is significantly higher than that of ordinary Vernier effect. Two enhanced HVE sensors S1 and S2 are developed using this method, but there is a certain difference in their FSR detuning. The experimental results reveal that within the temperature range of 30–35 °C, the temperature sensitivity of S1 and S2 reach − 44.39 nm/°C and − 23.14 nm/°C, respectively. Both S1 and S2 have extremely high temperature sensitivity, but FSR detuning has a significant impact on sensitivity amplification. Additionally, the proposed enhanced HVE sensor has good repeatability and stability in measuring temperature.

The Vernier effect is often utilized to boost the sensing ability of optical fiber sensors. In this paper, theoretical model of cascaded Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) with thin film based on Vernier effect is established. The sensitivities of the envelope spectra, thin film cavity and mixed cavity of air-thin film are analyzed qualitatively. According to the theoretical analysis, although sensitivity from mixed cavity of air-thin film is amplified, the value is equal to the sensitivity of sing thin film cavity. Experimental verification is carried out by an example of thin film named polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer. Herein, a new FPI constructed by air cavity from a hollow-core fiber, PDMS cavity, and air-PDMS mixed cavity is proposed and demonstrated. In order to facilitate the generation of the Vernier effect, the length of the PDMS cavity is intentionally designed shorter than the air cavity, making the free spectral range of the air-PDMS cavity and air cavity is approximately equal. The temperature change makes the refractive index and thermal expansion of PDMS change, while gas pressure change results in elastic deformation of PDMS. The Vernier envelope wavelength shifts with the temperature and gas pressure change. The proposed FPI features high temperature and gas pressure sensitivities of 3.07 nm/℃, and 23.07 nm/MPa, and a high magnification factor of 17 when the lengths of HCF and PDMS are 82.5 and 3.7 μm, respectively. The experimental results show that the temperature and pressure sensitivities of the cascaded FPI’s envelope spectra are equal to the sensitivity of a single thin film microcavity, and the theoretical calculation is in good agreement with the experimental verification. The theoretical model is also applicable to thin film prepared by other polymer materials. Additionally, the proposed FPI has good stability, reversibility, and repeatability, which is a good choice in the field of optical fiber sensing.

Ultra-sensitive temperature sensor based on PDMS filled Fabry-Perot cavity and air-bubble Fabry-Perot cavity in parallel

Fabry-Perot parallel type high sensitivity fiber optic temperature sensor based on vernier effect beyond free spectral range measurement

This article proposes a novel ultra-sensitive fiber optic temperature sensor based on a compact cascaded Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) and Vernier effect (VE). Firstly, a conical ultraviolet (UV) adhesive Fabry-Perot (F-P) cavity is prepared on the end face of a single-mode fiber (SMF). When the F-P cavity based on UV adhesive is subjected to thermal effects, the large thermal effect of the UV adhesive causes a variation of the optical path difference of the light transmitted in the F-P cavity, resulting in spectral drift. Temperature measurement is achieved by demodulating the spectral wavelength drift. Firstly, FPI1 and FPI3 are two UV adhesive based FPIs prepared at the SMF tip using this method. Then, they are inserted separately into two capillary tubes, and forming the compact cascaded FPI structure with the SMF located at the other end of the capillary tube. With the help of the charge coupled device (CCD) imaging system, the length of the air-cavity of two compact cascaded FPI structures is carefully adjusted, forming separately the VE sensor S1 and the harmonic vernier effect (HVE) sensor S2. S1 can further amplify the sensitivity of FPI1, and S2 can further amplify the sensitivity of FPI3. The experimental results show that the temperature sensitivities of FPI1 and FPI3 are 0.4631 nm/°C and −0.1110 nm/°C, respectively, and the temperature sensitivities of S1 and S2 are 3.0099 nm/°C and 3.5080 nm/°C. S1 increased the sensitivity of FPI1 by 6.5 times, and S2 improved the sensitivity of FPI3 by 31.6 times. The proposed sensor boasts a compact structure, simple manufacturing, durability, and high sensitivity. Meanwhile, the small sensing head is particularly useful for temperature detection in narrow spaces.

In this work, we present a high-sensitivity fiber-optic temperature sensor based on the enhanced Vernier effect. The sensor consists of a cascade of three Fabry–Perot interferometers (FPIs), where FPI1 contains a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cavity, FPI2 contains an air microcavity, and FPI3 contains a PDMS–air hybrid cavity. Since the effective lengths of the PDMS cavity and the PDMS–air hybrid cavity are close to each other, the superposition of the reflection spectra of FPI1 and FPI3 produces the traditional Vernier effect. Due to the thermo-optic effect and thermal expansion effect of PDMS and air, the reflection spectra of FPI1 and FPI3 will vary in the opposite direction with the temperature change, to achieve the enhanced Vernier effect. A temperature sensitivity of −35.45 nm/°C much higher than that of the fiber FPI sensor based on conventional Vernier effect is achieved, in good agreement with the theoretical analysis. The proposed sensor has the advantages high stability, mechanical strength, small size, and low cost, which has a great potential for marine environment detection and bioscience.

High sensitivity temperature sensor based on fiber air-microbubble Fabry-Perot interferometer with PDMS-filled hollow-core fiber

In this study, a highly sensitive gas pressure sensor based on two Fabry–Perot interferometers (FPIs) in parallel with the Vernier effect is designed and demonstrated. In the sensor, FPI1 and FPI2 were used as the detection and reference units, respectively. FPI1 and FPI2 have similar structures, both comprising a single-mode fiber and capillary splicing. However, the microaperture is processed on the capillary of the FPI1 with a femtosecond laser, enabling the external gas to enter the FPI1 cavity through the microaperture channel to realize the gas pressure measurement. The Vernier effect is achieved by superimposing the reflective spectra of FPI1 and FPI2, which have a small cavity length. The gas pressure response, repeatability, and stability of the sensor structures were investigated. The sensitivity of the sensor was improved owing to the Vernier effect. Experimental results indicate that the sensor sensitivity is up to 47.76 nm MPa−1, which is 11.9 times that of a single FPI1 sensor without the Vernier effect. The measured temperature cross-sensitivity of the sensor is approximately 5.1 kPa/ °C. In addition, the sensor has the advantages of simple manufacturing, robust structure, and stable operation. Finally, the manufacturing method of FPI and the parallel connection mode of FPIs could also be used in other sensing fields, providing an alternative design scheme for high-sensitivity sensors.

Sensitivity-enhanced temperature sensor by cascaded configuration of polarization mode interferometer and Lyot filter based on Vernier effect

We have proposed and experimentally demonstrated an ultrasensitive fiber-optic temperature sensor based on two cascaded Fabry-Perot interferometers (FPIs). Vernier effect that significantly improves the sensitivity is generated due to the slight cavity length difference of the sensing and reference FPI. The sensing FPI is composed of a cleaved fiber end-face and UV-cured adhesive while the reference FPI is fabricated by splicing SMF with hollow core fiber. Temperature sensitivity of the sensing FPI is much higher than the reference FPI, which means that the reference FPI need not to be thermally isolated. By curve fitting method, three different temperature sensitivities of 33.07, -58.60, and 67.35 nm/°C have been experimentally demonstrated with different cavity lengths ratio of the sensing and reference FPI, which can be flexibly adjusted to meet different application demands. The proposed probe-type ultrahigh sensitivity temperature sensor is compact and cost effective, which can be applied to special fields, such as biochemical engineering, medical treatment, and nuclear test.

A high-sensitivity all-fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) gas refractive index (RI) sensor based on lateral offset splicing and Vernier Effect is proposed. The sensing head consist of a reference FPI and a sensing FPI. A reference FPI and the sensing FPI is connected by two circulators. The sensing FPI is an open cavity made by lateral offset splicing of single mode fibers (SMFs), and the reference FPI is spliced by SMF and fiber tube. The Cascaded double-cavity produces a Vernier Effect and improves the sensitivity of gas RI. Experimental results show that the sensor has a high gas RI sensitivity of 16335.96 nm/RIU. The sensor has broad application prospects in gas composition detection, environmental monitoring, biosensors and other fields.

Sensing at small dimensions in biological and medical environments requires miniaturized sensors with high sensitivity and measurement resolution. In this work a small optical fiber probe was developed to apply the Vernier effect, allowing for enhanced temperature sensing. Such effect is an effective way of magnifying the sensitivity of a sensor or measurement system in order to reach higher resolutions. The device is a multimode silica Fabry-Perot interferometer structured at the edge of a tapered multimode fiber by focused ion beam milling. The Vernier effect is generated from the interference between different modes in the Fabry-Perot interferometer. The sensor was characterized in temperature, achieving a sensitivity of -654 pm/°C in a temperature range from 30°C to 120°C. The Vernier effect provided a temperature sensitivity over 60-fold higher than the sensitivity of a normal silica Fabry-Perot interferometer without the effect. The temperature resolution obtained was 0.14°C, however this value was limited by the resolution of the OSA and can be improved further to less than 0.015°C.

Reconfigurable highly-sensitive interferometric sensor with Vernier effect and a virtually tunable reference cell

Temperature measuring is a daily procedure carried out worldwide in practically all environments of human activity, but it takes particular relevance in industrial, scientific, medical, and food processing and production areas. The characteristics and performance of the temperature sensors required for such a large universe of applications have opened the opportunity for a comprehensive range of technologies and architectures capable of fulfilling the sensitivity, resolution, dynamic range, and response time demanded. In this work, a highly sensitive fiber optic temperature sensor based on a double-cavity Fabry-Perot interferometer (DCFPI) is proposed and demonstrated. Taking advantage of the Vernier effect, we demonstrate that it is possible to improve the temperature sensitivity exhibited by the polymer-capped fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (PCFPI) up to 39.8 nm/°C. The DCFPI is sturdy, reconfigured, and simple to fabricate, consisting of a semi-spherical polymer cap added to the surface of the ferrule of a commercial single-mode fiber connector (SMF FC/PC) placed in front of a mirror at a proper distance. The length of the air cavity (Lair) was adjusted to equal the thickness of the polymer cap (Lpol) plus a distance δ to generate the most convenient Vernier effect spectrum. The DCFPI was packaged in a machined, movable mount that allows the adjustment of the air cavity length easily but also protects the polymer cap and simplifies the manipulation of the sensor head.

A highly-sensitive temperature sensor with controllable sensitivity based on Vernier effect by cascading a tunable extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) and a fixed reflective Lyot filter (RLF) is theoretically investigated and experimentally demonstrated. The temperature sensitivity can be tuned by modulating the cavity length of the extrinsic FPI and online monitoring the envelope of superimposed spectrum with optical spectrum analyzer (OSA). The FPI works as the reference arm to tune the temperature sensitivity of the sensing system, while the RLF with 1-meter polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) acts as the sensing probe. Experimental results prove that by changing the cavity length of the FPI, the sensitivities of −3.82 nm/°C, −8.33 nm/°C and −14.63 nm/°C can be achieved. Compared with the single sensing element, the sensitivities are magnified by 3.78, 8.25 and 14.49 times. The proposed temperature sensor is feasible to be applied practically in scenarios which require different temperature sensitivities in demanded temperature detection ranges.