Optical fiber taper is proposed to be a high-sensitivity force sensor by using high-resolution, high-sensitivity optical frequency-domain reflectometry technique. The cross-correlation wavelength shift in the uniform region of taper is related to the refractive index change of the fundamental mode. The wavelength-force sensitivity of a fiber taper is dramatically improved due to its reduced waist diameter. It was demonstrated that that a taper with a waist diameter of ~6μm has a force resolution of 6.35μN and a force sensitivity of 620.83nm/N, which is about 500 times higher than that of SMF, over its uniform taper range with a spatial resolution of 3.85mm.

Date Published: 17 October 2012
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 8421, OFS2012 22nd International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors, 84211F (17 October 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.975074

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8421:
OFS2012 22nd International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors
Yanbiao Liao; Wei Jin; David D. Sampson; Ryozo Yamauchi; Youngjoo Chung; Kentaro Nakamura; Yunjiang Rao, Editor(s)