A U-Shaped Optical Fiber Temperature Sensor Coated with Electrospinning Polyvinyl Alcohol Nanofibers: Simulation and Experiment

Abstract

This study describes the fabrication of an electrospun, U-shaped optical fiber sensor for temperature measurements. The sensor is based on single mode fibers and was fabricated into a U-shaped optical fiber sensor through flame heating. This study applied electrospinning to coat PVA, a polymer, onto the sensor layer to reduce its sensitivity to humidity. The sensor is used to measure temperature variations ranging from 30◦C to 100◦C. The objectives of this study were to analyze the sensitivity variation of the sensor with different sensor layer thicknesses resulting from different electrospinning durations, as well as to simulate the wavelength signals generated at different electrospinning durations using COMSOL. The results revealed that the maximum wavelength sensitivity, transmission loss sensitivity, and linearity of the sensor were 25 dBm/◦C, 70 pm/◦C, and 0.956, respectively. Longer electrospinning durations resulted in thicker sensor layers and higher sensor sensitivity, that wavelength sensitivity of the sensor increased by 42%.