Refractive index and temperature sensing characteristics of an optical fiber sensor based on a tapered single mode fiber/polarization maintaining fiber

An evanescent field optical fiber sensor based on a short section of polarization maintaining fiber spliced with a tapered single mode fiber is proposed and experimentally investigated. We mainly focus on the refractive index (RI) and temperature sensing characteristics of this compact device. The transmission spectrum of the resonance wavelength, induced by the interference between the excited low order cladding modes and core modes, shows the quadratic function relationships with RI and linear relationships with temperature. Thus, the proposal of this simple-to-fabricate, compact, and low cost sensor shows its possible potential in the sensitive detection field.