In-line microfiber MZI operating at two sides of the dispersion turning point for ultrasensitive RI and temperature measurement

Abstract An in-line microfiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is demonstrated for ultrasensitive refractive index (RI) and temperature measurement by operating at two sides of the dispersion turning point (DTP), respectively. An ultrahigh RI sensitivity of 24,209 nm/RIU (RI unit) around 1.3320 and a high temperature sensitivity of -2.47 nm/℃ are experimentally achieved by a microfiber MZI with taper waist diameter of about 4.8 μm. By embedding this microfiber MZI into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), the temperature sensitivity is improved from -2.47 nm/℃ to about 8.33 nm/℃. The positive temperature sensitivity of this PDMS-coated microfiber MZI and the negative thermo-optic coefficient of PDMS show that this microfiber MZI has a negative RI sensitivity around the material RI of PDMS (about 1.405), which indicates that the microfiber MZI works at two sides of the DTP for RI measurement and temperature measurement, respectively. The PDMS-coated microfiber MZI could achieve a temperature measurement resolution of about 0.0024 ℃ if the resolution of the optical spectrum analyzer were 0.02 nm, making it suitable for temperature measurement applications with high precision requirement. The bare microfiber MZI is promising for liquid analytical measurement in fields like biochemistry for its advantages of ultrahigh sensitivity, small size, and little sample consumption.