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All-solid multi-core fiber-based multipath Mach–Zehnder interferometer for temperature sensing

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Abstract

A novel multipath Mach–Zehnder interferometer (m-MZI) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, which is fabricated by fusion splicing a segment of all-solid multi-core fiber (MCF) between two sections of single mode fiber-28 with a well-controlled lateral offset at the splice points. Beam propagation method-based simulation results demonstrated light passing throw MCF from multiple paths. Experiments with different lengths of MCF were implemented to investigate our proposed m-MZI’s response to temperature and strain. Compared with previously reported optical fiber modal interferometers, higher phase sensitivity can be obtained in our scheme due to the multipath interference configuration embedded in one fiber. A very high temperature sensitivity of 130.6 pm/°C has been achieved, and the maximum strain sensitivity is less than 0.284 pm/με in all experiments. A record low strain-to-temperature cross-sensitivity of 6.2 × 10−4 °C/με has been realized, and it shows great significance of this in-fiber integrated multipath Mach–Zehnder interferometer in practical temperature sensing applications.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61107087 and 61205063), the 863 High Technology Plan of China (2013AA010502), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program: 2010CB328305), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities’, HUST: 2013TS052.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan National Lab for Optoelectronics (WNLO) and the National Engineering Laboratory of Next Generation Internet Access Networks (NGIA) School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, 430074, China

    Zhiyong Zhao, Ming Tang, Songnian Fu, Shuang Liu, Perry Ping Shum & Deming Liu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Optical Fiber and Cable Manufacture Technology, Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable Company Ltd. R&D Center, Wuhan, 430073, China

    Huifeng Wei, Yu Cheng & Weijun Tong

  3. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 637798, Singapore

    Perry Ping Shum

Authors
  1. Zhiyong Zhao
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  2. Ming Tang
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  3. Songnian Fu
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  4. Shuang Liu
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  5. Huifeng Wei
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  6. Yu Cheng
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  7. Weijun Tong
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  8. Perry Ping Shum
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  9. Deming Liu
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Correspondence to Ming Tang.

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Zhao, Z., Tang, M., Fu, S. et al. All-solid multi-core fiber-based multipath Mach–Zehnder interferometer for temperature sensing. Appl. Phys. B 112, 491–497 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-013-5634-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-013-5634-8

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