Pressure Sensor based on an all-fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer for different gaseous environments

Abstract

This work describes an all-fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FFPI) that is sensitive to gas pressure variations. The geometry of the air cavity consists on splicing a small section of silica rod with a large offset in between two singlemode fibers. It is shown that the FFPI sensor is sensitive to gas pressure variation and when submitted to different gaseous environments, namely carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen, it presented different sensitivities of 6.2, 4.1 and 3.6 nm/MPa, respectively. This result is obtained due to refractive index difference between gases. The refractive index change on nitrogen environment by means of the gas pressure variation resulted in a sensitivity of 1526 nm/RIU. The response of the sensing device to temperature in air was also determined and a sensitivity of -14 pm/degrees C was attained.