Multiplex and simultaneous measurement of displacement and temperature using tapered fiber and fiber Bragg grating

A simple method to work out the multiplexing of tapered fiber based sensors is proposed and demonstrated. By cascading a tapered fiber with a fiber Bragg grating (FBG), the sensor head is provided with a wavelength identification, different FBGs provide the sensor heads with different reflective peaks and they can be distinguished in optical spectrum. By compositing several such sensor heads with a multi-channel beam splitter, a star-style topological structure sensor for multipoint sensing is achieved. At the same time, the output intensity at the peak wavelength is sensitive to one external physical parameter applied on the related FBG-cascaded tapered fiber and the central wavelength of the peak is only sensitive to temperature, so that that parameter and temperature can be measured simultaneously. A sensor for dual-point measurement of the displacement and temperature simultaneously is experimentally demonstrated by using a 2 x 2 coupler in this paper. Experiment results show that the sensor works well and the largest sensitivities reach to 0.11 dB/mu m for displacement in the range of 0-400 mu m, and similar to 0.0097 nm/degrees C for temperature between 20 degrees C and 70 degrees C. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4718360]