title: Highly sensitive in-fiber interferometric refractometer with temperature and axial strain compensation.
abstract: A novel fiber-optic refractometer is proposed and demonstrated to achieve temperature- and axial strain-compensated refractive index measurement using highly sensitive outer-cladding modes in a tapered bend-insensitive fiber based Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Peak wavelength shifts associated with different spatial frequency peaks are calibrated to obtain a wavelength-related character matrix (λ)M(RI,T,ε) for simultaneous measurement of multiple environmental variables. A phase-related character matrix (Φ)M(RI,T,ε) is also acquired by direct determination of refractive index, temperature, and axial strain induced phase shifts of the corresponding sensing modes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada.
authors.forename: Jeremie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Hugo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Larocque
authors.forename: Yanping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Xiaoyi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Bao
mesh_terms: D055119:Elastic Modulus; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005246:Feedback; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007368:Interferometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013696:Temperature; D013718:Tensile Strength