Studies on Temperature and Strain Sensitivities of a Few-Mode Critical Wavelength Fiber Optic Sensor

Abstract

This paper studied the relationship between the temperature/strain wavelength sensitivity of a fiber optic in-line Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) sensor and the wavelength separation of the measured wavelength to the critical wavelength (CWL) in a CWL-existed interference spectrum formed by interference between LP01 and LP02 modes. The in-line MZI fiber optic sensor has been constructed by splicing a section of specially designed few-mode fiber (FMF), which supports LP01 and LP02 modes propagating in the fiber, between two pieces of single-mode fiber. The propagation constant difference, $\Delta \beta $ , between the LP01 and LP02 modes, changes non-monotonously with wavelength and reaches a maximum at the CWL. As a result, in the sensor operation, peaks on the different sides of the CWL then shift in opposite directions, and the associated temperature/strain sensitivities increase significantly when the measured wavelength points become close to the CWL, from both sides of the CWL. A theoretical analysis carried out has predicted that with this specified FMF sensor approach, the temperature/strain wavelength sensitivities are governed by the wavelength difference between the measured wavelength and the CWL. This conclusion was seen to agree well with the experimental results obtained. Combining the wavelength shifts of the peaks and the CWL in the transmission spectrum of the SFS structure, this paper has shown that this approach forms the basis of effective designs of high sensitivity sensors for multi-parameter detection and offering a large measurement range to satisfy the requirements needed for better industrial measurements.