Side-polished fibers with rough surface scratches for sensing applications

We demonstrated a fast mechanical wheel lapping technique to fabricate a low-cost side polished fiber (SPF) with a rough, rather than smooth, polished surface. Such a bare SPF can be directly used to develop a promising sensing device, because Mach-Zehnder interference pattern with high fringe contrast above 10 dB in transmission spectrum was achieved due to the macro scratches on the rough polished surface. Fabrication parameters, e.g. thickness of remained fiber, polished length and roughness of the abrasive paper were optimized to obtain SPF samples. The SPF-based sensor exhibited strain and temperature sensitivities up to - 2.00 pm/με and 29.37 pm/°C, and can be used to realize simultaneous strain and temperature measurement.