Intensity modulated silver coated glass optical fiber refractive index sensor

Miniature optical fiber sensors with thin films as sensitive elements could open new fields for optical fiber sensor applications. Thin films work as sensitive elements and a transducer to get response and feedback from environments, in which optical fibers act as a signal carrier. A novel Ag coated intensity modulated optical fiber sensor based on refractive index changes using IR and UV-Vis (UV-visible) light sources is proposed. The sensor with an IR light source has higher sensitivity compared to a UV-Vis source. When the refractive index is enhanced to 1.38, the normalized intensity of IR and UV-Vis light diminishes to 0.2 and 0.8, respectively.