Asymmetrical dual tapered fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer for fiber-optic directional tilt sensor

This work proposes a novel, highly sensitive and directional fiber tilt sensor that is based on an asymmetrical dual tapered fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (ADTFMZI). The fiber-optic tilt sensor consists of two abrupt tapers with different tapered waists into which are incorporated a set of iron spheres to generate an asymmetrical strain in the ADTFMZI that is correlated with the tilt angle and the direction of inclination. Owing to the asymmetrical structure of the dual tapers, the proposed sensor can detect the non-horizontal/horizontal state of a structure and whether the test structure is tilted to clockwise or counterclockwise by measuring the spectral responses. Experimental results show that the spectral wavelengths are blue-shifted and red-shifted when the sensor tilts to clockwise (-theta) and counterclockwise (+theta), respectively. Tilt angle sensitivities of about 335pm/deg. and 125pm/deg. are achieved in the -theta and +theta directions, respectively, when the proposed sensing scheme is utilized. (C)2014 Optical Society of America