PCF Modal Interferometer Based on Macrobending for Refractive Index Sensing

Author

Dash, Jitendra Narayan ; Jha, Rajan

Author_Institution

Nanophotonics & Plamonics Lab., Indian Inst. of Technol. Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar, India

Volume

15

Issue

9

fYear

2015

fDate

Sept. 2015

Firstpage

5291

Lastpage

5295

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrated a photonic crystal fiber (PCF)-based modal interferometer with macrobending for the detection of analyte refractive index (RI). The interferometer consists of a section of large mode area PCF spliced between single mode fibers (SMFs), i.e., SMF-PCF-SMF structure. The PCF is subjected to macrobending of the order of cm^-1 and its modal properties for different values of macrobending radii have been analyzed using finite-element method. Experimental results show that this simple and compact interferometer has low temperature and power dependence but its RI sensitivity is found to be as high as 258 nm/RIU for a curvature of 0.36 cm^-1 (which is 165% higher than zero curvature) with a resolution 3.9 × 10^-5 RIU.

Keywords

bending; fibre optic sensors; finite element analysis; light interferometers; photonic crystals; refractive index measurement; PCF modal interferometer; analyte refractive index detection; finite-element method; macrobending; photonic crystal fiber; power dependence; refractive index sensing; single mode fibers; Interference; Optical fiber sensors; Optical interferometry; Sagnac interferometers; Sensitivity; Temperature sensors; PCF; interferometer; macro bending;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Sensors Journal, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1530-437X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSEN.2015.2438114

Filename

7113777