Highly sensitive polymer based fabry-perot interferometer for temperature sensing

Abstract

—A highly sensitive temperature sensor based on a polymer cavity of a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) is experimentally demonstrated. The interferometer gives ease in fabrication, and it can be formed by the induction of a thermos-sensitive polymer layer in between two single mode fibers (SMFs). The polymer is used as an FPI cavity for temperature sensing. Due to high thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) and thermos-optic coefficient (TOC) of polymer make the interferometer highly sensitive to ambient temperature. The maximum temperature sensitivity of 2.2209 nm/◦ C for the polymer FPI cavity of 40.61 µm in the ambient temperature range of 28◦ C to 34◦ C is obtained. The proposed sensor shows the advantages of high sensitivity, compactness, simple fabrication, and low cost. Thus, it may become a part of various practical applications in the field of environmental science and engineering sciences.