Investigation on the characteristics of micro/nanofiber Bragg grating for refractive index sensing

Abstract

Using the fiber Bragg grating equation and the functional relation of the fundamental effective mode refractive index (RI), the mathematical model of the wavelength shift and the relational function of wavelength sensitivity are established, when the reflected wavelength of the micro/nanofiber Bragg grating (MNFBG) changes with ambient RI and the fiber radius. The theoretical relationship demonstrates that the variation of MNFBG reflected wavelengths is dependent on the change of effective RI with fiber radius and ambient RI. Meanwhile, we also study the variation of effective RI and its sensitivity in detail. The results show that the effective RI nonlinearly decreases with fiber-core radius and ambient refractive index decreasing, and its sensitivity increases as the ambient refractive index increases, and the sensitivity, linearity and the linear response range increase with the decrease of the fiber radius. For a fiber radius of 0.5 μm, by simulating the curves of the effective index versus ambient RI in the index ranges of 1.20-1.30 and 1.33-1.43 respectively, the values of wavelength sensitivity of 477.33 nm/RIU and 856.30 nm/RIU and the values of high linearity of 99.2% and 99.7% are obtained, which not only verifies the analysis conclusions and the measurement program for RI sensing with MNFBG, but also supplies references for the RI sensor design, optimization and the application.