Optical relative humidity sensor based on a hollow core-photonic bandgap fiber

Abstract

We propose a novel relative humidity (RH) sensor based on a hollow core-photonic bandgap fiber (HC-PBF) using a wavelength scan and a reference technique in this paper. The wavelength scan of water vapor absorption peak around 1368.59 nm is realized by injecting sawtooth modulated current to a DFB laser diode. The humidity level is determined by the voltage difference (ΔV) between the reference signal and absorption signal at the peak of water vapor absorption. The reference signal is used not only as a zero absorption baseline but also to reduce the influence of intensity noise from DFB laser source. We have experimentally implemented the wavelength scanning modulation scheme with a HC-PBF sensing head of 5 cm and a small gap between SMF and HC-PBF to allow air diffusion into air holes of HC-PBF. High humidity sensitivity of 3.02 mV/1% RH over the range from 0 to 90% RH is achieved without the use of any coating material for humidity sensing.