Optical frequency combs (OFCs) have attracted attention as optical frequency rulers due to their tooth-like discrete spectra together with their inherent mode-locking nature and phase-locking control to a frequency standard. Based on this concept, their applications until now have been demonstrated in the fields of optical frequency metrology. However, if the utility of OFCs can be further expanded beyond their application by exploiting new aspects of OFCs, this will lead to new developments in optical metrology and instrumentation. Here, we report a fiber sensing application of OFCs based on a coherent link between the optical and radio frequencies, enabling high-precision refractive index measurement based on frequency measurement in radio-frequency (RF) region. Our technique encodes a refractive index change of a liquid sample into a repetition frequency of OFC by a combination of an intracavity multi-mode-interference fiber sensor and wavelength dispersion of a cavity fiber. Then, the change in refractive index is read out by measuring the repetition frequency in RF region based on a frequency standard. Use of an OFC as a photonic RF converter will lead to the development of new applications in high-precision fiber sensing with the help of functional fiber sensors and precise RF measurement.
This letter presents the experimental investigation to increase the sensitivity of an optical fiber refractive index sensor with a multimode interference (MMI) structure. It is confirmed that the interference wavelength can be set in the long-wavelength region by adjusting the sensing-part length. Moreover, it is shown that the fineness of the cores in the input and output fibers is essential to obtain a sharp interference signal. We demonstrate the high sensitivity of an MMI-structured optical fiber sensor by applying it to refractive index measurements of ethanol/water solutions. This refractive index sensor reveals a resolution as fine as 1.8 × 10 −5 , which is the highest value so far reported in this type and has one order higher sensitivity than a commercially available Abbe refractometer (∼ 10 −4 ).
We have developed a simple, high-sensitivity optical-fiber temperature sensor based on multimode interference (MMI). The fabricated MMI structure comprises three segmented fibers: a single-mode fiber (SMF); a large-core multimode fiber (MMF), whose outer surface is coated with a temperature-sensitive material; and another SMF. Fluoroacrylate and silicone rubber are tested as temperature-sensitive cladding materials. The silicone rubber coating exhibits a large shift in interference wavelength with temperature, producing a very fine temperature resolution as low as 0.01 °C.
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