title: Reflective tilted fiber Bragg grating refractometer based on strong cladding to core recoupling.
abstract: A novel in-fiber structure for power-referenced refractometry with the capability to measure surrounding refractive index (SRI) as low as 1.33 is proposed and demonstrated. A short optical fiber stub containing a weakly tilted Bragg grating is spliced to another fiber with a large lateral offset. The reflection from this structure occurs in two well-defined wavelength bands, the Bragg reflected core mode and the cladding modes. The cladding modes reflect different amounts of power as the SRI changes, while the core-mode reflection from the same weakly tilted FBG remains unaffected by the SRI. The power reflected in the core mode band can be used as a reliable reference to cancel out any possible power fluctuations. The proposed refractometer with improved sensitivity for low SRI measurement together with the tip-reflection sensing feature, is a good candidate for sensing in chemical and biological applications.
authors.affiliation: Photonics Research Center, Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China. guotuan2001@163.com
authors.forename: Tuan
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Hwa-Yaw
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Tam
authors.forename: Peter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Krug
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Albert