Compact and Ultrasensitive Temperature Sensor With a Fully Liquid-Filled Photonic Crystal Fiber Mach–Zehnder Interferometer

We propose a compact and ultrasensitive all-fiber temperature sensor based on an in-line fully liquid-filled photonic crystal fiber (PCF) Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). It consists of a small piece of index-guiding PCF fully infiltrated by fluid and two standard single-mode fibers offset spliced with PCF. Two core modes LP01 and LP11 are conveniently used as optical arms to form the in-line MZI-type interferometer. Experimental and theoretical investigations of its response to temperature confirm that high temperature sensitivity up to -1.83 nm/°C could be realized with such a compact interferometeric PCF temperature sensor.