Ultrawide temperature range operation of SPR sensor utilizing a depressed double cladding fiber coated with Au-Polydimethylsiloxane

A surface plasmon resonance (SPR) temperature sensor on the basis of depressed double cladding fiber (DDCF) is theoretically proposed and experimentally demonstrated for the first time. Simulation analysis implies that the SPR fiber optic structure consisting of a multimode fiber (MMF) inserted into an 8 mm long DDCF is highly sensitive to the refractive index (RI) of the surrounding environment, owing to their mismatched cores, large discrepancy in cladding diameters, and the depressed inner cladding in DDCF. The experimental results further verify that the highest RI sensitivity is 7002 nm/RIU established with a 50nm Au coated DDCF-SPR sensor. Additionally, the temperature sensitivity reaches up to −2.27 nm/°C within a wide working temperature range of −30 to 330 °C by combining polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film as the temperature sensitive material with DDCF-Au architecture. The integrated PDMS, Au and DDCF temperature sensor possesses high performance in terms of sensing capability and physical construction, opening a route to their potential applications in other types of sensors.