Resolution and sensitivity enhancements in strong grating based fiber Fabry–Perot interferometric sensor system utilizing multiple reflection beams

We investigate an asymmetric intensive fiber Bragg grating (FBG) defined Fabry–Perot (F–P) sensor system decoded by a multiple-path-matched Michelson interferometer. The interrogation of higher order reflection beams cannot only solve the problem of the degraded resolution induced by the spectral mismatch of the FBGs, but also amplify the effect of the fiber strain on the phase of the light. We demonstrate multiple reflection beams in the F–P cavity based on the concept of the FBG effective length for constructing respective interrogation interferometers, and present a cost function with optimized system parameters to improve noise properties. The performances of interrogating the second, third and fourth order reflection beams are compared in a strain sensing experiment arrangement. Under the condition of the same optical path length mismatch, the interrogation of the fourth order reflection beam can achieve 9.8 dB sensitivity enhancement and 3 dB resolution promotion compared with the result using the second order reflection beam.