Temperature-Insensitive Micro Fabry–PÉrot Strain Sensor Fabricated by Chemically Etching Er-Doped Fiber

Author

Gong, Yuan ; Rao, Yun-Jiang ; Guo, Yu ; Ran, Zeng-Ling ; Wu, Yu

Author_Institution

Lab. of Broadband Opt. Fiber Transm. & Commun. Networks, Univ. of Electron. Sci. & Technol. of China, Chengdu, China

Volume

21

Issue

22

fYear

2009

Firstpage

1725

Lastpage

1727

Abstract

Micro extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric (MEFPI) sensors are fabricated by chemically etching Er-doped fibers with mixed hydrochloric (HCl) and hydrofluoric (HF) acid and fusion splicing. Compared with MEFPI sensors fabricated by etched single-mode fibers, the sensor performance is greatly improved by the chemical reaction between HCl acid and doped Er₂O₃. A maximum visibility of ~24 dB is obtained, comparable to that of MEFPI sensors fabricated by excimer lasers. Our MEFPI sensor has high mechanical strength as the etching rate difference between fiber core and cladding is enlarged. Preliminary results indicate that this kind of sensor is insensitive to temperature while highly sensitive to strain, with sensitivities of ~0.65 pm/degC and ~3.15 pm/muepsiv, respectively.

Keywords

Fabry-Perot interferometers; etching; fibre optic sensors; mechanical strength; micro-optics; microsensors; optical fibre cladding; optical fibre fabrication; strain sensors; Er-doped fibers; chemically etching; fiber cladding; fiber core; fusion splicing; hydrochloric acid; hydrofluoric acid; mechanical strength; micro extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric sensors; single-mode fibers; strain sensor; visibility; Chemical etching; Er-doped fiber (EDF); Fabry–PÉrot; Fiber-optic sensors (FOS); strain;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2009.2032662

Filename

5272444