Thin film-based optical fiber sensors

Optical thin films can be deposited on side- and end-face of optical fiber, if these films are sensitive to ambient environments, optical refractive index changes in thin films will finally result to variation of optical signals transmitted in the optical fiber. Here thin films work as sensitive elements and transducer to get response and feedback from environments, optical fiber here are employed to work as signal carrier. In this article, we review some research work of optical fiber sensors with sensitive thin films developed at the National Engineering Lab for Optical Fiber Sensor, Wuhan University of Technology.