High-sensitivity hydraulic pressure sensor based on Fabry-Perot interferometer filled with polydimethylsiloxane film

A high-sensitivity hydraulic pressure sensor is proposed, which consists of a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) filled with a polymer film of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The FPI structure is fabricated by splicing a section of hollow core fiber (HCF) to the end-face of a lead-in single mode fiber (SMF). Then, the PDMS is filled into the HCF which acts as a light reflector and a diaphragm to detect external pressure variation. As a result, the length of the FPI cavity and the thickness of the PDMS are 137.8 µm and 33.8 µm, respectively. Experimental results indicate that the sensor's wavelength exhibits a linear response to the hydraulic pressure, which function is described as y = -7.35 × 10^-3x + 1536.395. Here, x and y represent the hydraulic pressure and the wavelength, respectively. The pressure sensitivity is up to -7.35 nm/kPa. Besides, a temperature compensation method based on a fiber Bragg grating is proposed to eliminate the influence of temperature. Experiments show that the scheme can effectively eliminate the influence of temperature and achieve accurate measurement of hydraulic pressure.