A microfiber-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) for measurement of absolute strain is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. The diameter of the microfiber is optimized to induce the negative thermo-optic effect in the microfiber MZI and the temperature sensitivity of the microfiber MZI is successfully suppressed. When the diameter of the microfiber is ~5 μm, the temperature sensitivity of the microfiber-MZI is dramatically mitigated. We apply the proposed microfiber MZI for absolute strain measurement and its strain sensitivity is measured to be ~7.13×10-2 nm/ μЄ.

Date Published: 2 June 2014
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 9157, 23rd International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors, 91577K (2 June 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2058780

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9157:
23rd International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors
José M. López-Higuera; Julian D. C. Jones; Manuel López-Amo; José Luis Santos, Editor(s)