High Sensitivity Fiber Refractometer Based on an Optical Microfiber Coupler

Authors

Lin Bo, Technological University DublinFollow
Pengfei Wang, Technological University DublinFollow
Yuliya Semenova, Technological University DublinFollow
Gerald Farrell, Technological University DublinFollow

Document Type

Article

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Publication Details

IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 25, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2013

DOI: 10.1109/LPT.2012.2234449

Abstract

An optical microfiber coupler-based refractive index sensor is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in this letter. A microfiber coupler with a minimum diameter of 2.5 µm and a uniform waist with a length of 2 mm is fabricated and used for sensing surrounding refractive index. Both theoretical and experimental results have shown that the spectral response of the proposed microfiber coupler is highly sensitive to the surrounding refractive index over the range from 1.3340 to 1.3800. An average sensitivity of 2723 nm/RIU over this entire refractive index range has been achieved experimentally. Furthermore, for the refractive index range from 1.3340 to 1.3515,

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1109/LPT.2012.2234449

Recommended Citation

Bo, L. et al. (2013) High Sensitivity Fiber Refractometer Based on an Optical Microfiber Coupler. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 25, no.3. doi:10.1109/LPT.2012.2234449

Funder

International Centre for Graduate Education in Micro and Nano Engineering, Irish Research Council, European Union Marie-Cuyreie Actions under FP7, National Access Program, Tyndall national Institute.