Research on temperature and magnetic field sensing characteristics of photonic crystal fiber filled with magnetic fluid

Abstract

In this study, the photonic crystal fiber (PCF) air holes were filled with a kind of new functional material—magnetic fluid (MF) is presented. According to the sensitive characteristics of MF's refractive index versus temperature and magnetic field, the loss characteristic of the PCF filled with MF caused by temperature/magnetic field were analyzed theoretically by finite element method. It could be concluded that when the surrounding temperature rises from 37.5 to 80°C, the PCF loss sensitivity is about −0.167 dB/°C; when the external magnetic field rises from 20 to 300 Oe, the PCF loss sensitivity is about 0.042 dB/Oe. Besides, experiment was also carried out to verify the aforementioned results. With the same external condition, the loss sensitivity of temperature is about −0.167 dB/°C and loss sensitivity of magnetic field is about 0.046 dB/Oe. The results indicated that theoretical calculation basically agrees with the experimental verification, by which a new method and new thought for temperature and magnetic field measurement is provided. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:831–834, 2014