Extensible multi-wavelength interrogation method for arbitrary cavities in low-fineness multi-cavity Fabry-Pérot interferometric sensors.

Abstract

To the best of our knowledge, a novel extensible multi-wavelength (EMW) method to interrogate arbitrary cavities in low-fineness fiber-optic multi-cavity Fabry-Pérot interferometric (LFMFPI) sensors is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Based on the derived model of the LFMFPI sensor with any amount of cascaded cavities, theoretically, variation in each cavity of a LFMFPI sensor can be extracted simultaneously once the necessary parameters are acquired in advance. The feasibility of this method is successfully demonstrated in simulations and experiments utilizing LFMFPI sensors. In experiments with the LFMFPI sensor, optical path differences (OPD) of 78 nm and 2.95 µm introduced by temperature variation in two cavities, and the OPD induced by vibration with the amplitude from 5.891 nm to 38.116 nm were extracted, respectively. The EMW method is potential in multi-parameter sensing for pressure, vibration, and temperature.