Simple air-gap fiber Fabry–Perot interferometers based on a fiber endface with Sn-microsphere overlay

This study presents a simple, cost-effective and sensitive air-gap fiber Fabry–Perot interferometer (AG-PPFI) which is based on a metal Tin (Sn)-overlaying fiber technique. An extremely small drop of metallic Sn was heated and then melted to shrink into a microsphere owing to the cohesion of the material. When a fiber was inserted into the melting Sn microsphere, an air gap was naturally formed between the fiber endface and the metal Sn during the cooling process. By carefully controlling the reaction time, various air-gaps can be formed as the Fabry–Perot interferometric cavities for the proposed AG-PPFIs. Measurements reveal that a smaller length of air-gap and heavier mass of Sn-microsphere are associated with higher sensitivity of temperature, but the former is dominated. A best temperature sensitivity of wavelength shift with +4.3 nm/°C is achieved when the air-gap is about 5 μm with mass of Sn-microsphere of about 10 μg. The variation of the wavelength shift is equivalent to sensitivity for a change in the cavity length of +14.83 nm/°C.