Cladding mode resonances of etch-eroded fiber Bragg grating for ambient refractive index sensing

In this Letter, the cladding mode resonances of a chemical etch-eroded fiber Bragg grating are proposed for highly sensitive ambient refractive index sensing. The varying characteristics of several different order cladding mode resonances with ambient refractive index are explored experimentally. The maximum sensing sensitivity of 172 nm/riu for the third-order cladding mode resonance is achieved in the experiments. Under the same cladding diameter, the cladding mode resonances have narrower bandwidth and response much more sensitive to the ambient refractive index changing than conventional Bragg core mode resonance, which would enable them to achieve a higher resolution. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.