Fiber Strain Sensor Based on Panda Polarization Maintaining Fiber

Strain sensing experiments have been performed on Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) fiber sensors based on Panda Polarization Maintaining Fiber (PMF). The MZI structure was designed as "SMF-MMF-PMF-MMF-SMF. Two MZI structures with PMF tapered and un-tapered were fabricated. The un-tapered MZI1 shows strain sensitivity of ~0.005 nm/µε, and the tapered MZI2 shows strain sensitivity of ~0.073 nm/µε. Tapering significantly improves the strain sensitivity of the sensor