Zero and double-knotted droplet-shaped optical fiber sensor for rapid temperature variation monitoring

Compact, simple optical fiber sensors based on a macro-bend fiber configuration were fabricated and proposed for instantaneous temperature measurement. These fiber sensors were manufactured by straightforwardly mechanically bending two different pieces of single-mode fiber (SMF) into zero-knotted droplet-shaped and double-knotted droplet-shaped, separately, with radii of a few millimeters. The sharp bending excites mode interferences among the core mode and the stimulated modes transmitting in the cladding region of the silica SMF. Many resonant interference fringes were perceived in the transmission signal and were noticed to shift to a shorter spectral region with the rise of environmental temperature (ET). The resultant data prove the practicality of the fabricated optical fiber sensors with excellent temperature sensitivities of about −1.128 nm/°C and −1.904 nm/°C, for zero-knotted droplet-shaped and double-knotted droplet-shaped, respectively, which is several times larger than sensors based on straight-transmitted fiber constructions. The proposed sensors’ structures may contribute effectively to temperature variations monitoring for environmental or industrial uses due to their large thermo-optical coefficient of the silica core and the big RI difference between the core and cladding of the bending fiber section.