Miniaturized fiber-optic Fabry-Perot interferometer for highly sensitive refractive index measurement

Abstract

This paper presents a novel miniaturized fiber-optic Fabry-Peort interferometer (FPI) for highly sensitive refractive index measurement. This device was tested for the refractive indices of various liquids including acetone and ethanol at room temperature. The sensitivity for measurement of refractive index change of ethanol is 1138 nm/RIU at the wavelength of 1550 nm. In addition, the sensor fabrication is simple including only cleaving, splicing, and etching. The signal is stable with high visibility. Therefore, it provides a valuable tool in biological and chemical applications.