Highly sensitive temperature and curvature sensor based on seven-core fiber

Abstract

A high sensitivity temperature and curvature micro-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MMZI) sensor is proposed and demonstrated. A peanut structure is fused by a section of seven-core fiber (SCF) and a section of single-mode fiber (SMF). Then the SCF is connected to another SMF and tapered. Finally, the composite structure with the tapered SCF and the SCF-SMF peanut structure is fabricated. The coupling efficiency can be significantly improved, and more high-order modes can be stimulated via the new sensor structure. The experimental results demonstrated that the maximum temperature sensitivity is 836.67 pm/ °C in the range of 35 °C to 40 °C, which is the highest temperature sensitivity of the peanut-shaped MMZI sensor to the best of our knowledge. Furthermore, the sensor can be used for curvature measurement. When the curvature changes from 0 m−1 to 0.0522449 m−1, the sensitivity can achieve 93.33664 nm/m−1. The proposed sensor not only provides a novel method to fabricate a high-sensitivity sensor by combining different types of fibers, but it also has a meaningful application prospect in the fields of biological detection and environmental monitoring.