High-sensitivity, evanescent field refractometric sensor based on a tapered, multimode fiber interference

Abstract

We propose and experimentally demonstrate an enhanced evanescent field fiber refractometer based on a tapered multimode fiber sandwiched between two single-mode fibers. Experiments show that this fiber sensor offers ultrahigh sensitivity [better than 1900 nm/RIU at a refractive index (RI) of 1.44] for RI measurements within the range of 1.33-1.44, in agreement with the theoretical predictions. This is the highest value reported to date (to our knowledge) in the literature.