Fiber optic refractive index sensor based on π-phase shifted fiber Bragg grating fabricated on etched side-hole fiber

Abstract

In this paper, we present a temperature-insensitive refractive index sensor based on π-phase-shifted Bragg gratings fabricated on side-hole fibers processed by wet chemical etching technique. The reflection spectrum of the π-phase shifted gratings on etched side-hole fiber features two notches with large spectral separation, which was used for refractive index (RI) detection in our application. The relative spectral notch separation exhibited a RI sensitivity of −278.5 pm/RIU (RIU: RI unit). Theoretical simulation obtained the temperature sensitivity of −0.00241 pm/°C, and experimental results also showed little sensitivity to temperature of our RI sensor.