Multiple hollow-core anti-resonant fiber as a supermodal fiber interferometer

Abstract

Hollow-core anti-resonant fiber technology has made a rapid progress in low loss broadband transmission, enabled by its much reduced light-material overlap. This unique characteristic has driven emerging of new applications spanning from extreme wavelength generation to beam delivery. The successful demonstrations appear to suggest progression of the technology toward device level development and all-fiberized systems. We investigate this opportunity and report an in-fiber interferometer built in a dual hollow-core anti-resonant fiber. By placing multiple air cores in a single fiber, coherently interacting transverse modes are excited, which becomes a basis of an interferometer. We use this hollow core based inherent supermodal interaction to demonstrate highly sensitive in-fiber interferometer. Unique combination of the air guidance and the supermodal interaction offers robust, simple yet highly sensitive interferometer with suppressed temperature cross-talk that has been an enduring problem in fiber strain sensing applications. The in-fiber interferometer is further investigated as a sensing element for pressure measurement based on an interferometric phase change upon external strain. The interferometer features 39.3 nm/MPa of ultrahigh sensitivity with 0.14 KPa/°C of negligible gas pressure temperature crosstalk. The performance, which is much improved from prior fiber sensors, testifies advances of hollow core fiber technology toward a device level.