High-Performance Ultrafast Humidity Sensor Based on Microknot Resonator-Assisted Mach–Zehnder for Monitoring Human Breath

Monitoring the dynamic humidity requires sensors with fast response and anti-electromagnetic interference, especially for human respiration. Here, an ultrafast fiber-optic breath sensor based on the humidity-sensitive characteristics of gelatin film is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor consists of a microknot resonator superimposed on a Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometer produced by a tapered single-mode fiber, which has an ultrafast response (84 ms) and recovery time (29 ms) and a large dynamic transmission range. The humidity in dynamic ambient causes changes in the refractive index of gelatin coating, which could trigger spectral intensity transients that can be explicitly distinguished between the two states. The sensing principle is analyzed using the traditional transfer-matrix analysis method. The influence of coating thickness on the sensor's trigger threshold is further investigated. Experiments on monitoring breath patterns indicate that the proposed breath sensor has high repeatability, reliability, and validity, which enable many other potential applications such as food processing, health monitoring, and other biomedical applications.