Characteristics of cladding index modulated fiber gratings for ambient refractive index sensing

Characteristics of cladding index modulated fiber gratings for ambient refractive index sensing is studied in this paper. The modes propagation properties and coupling properties in cladding index modulated FBG are studied based on the classical coupling mode theory while considering interactions among multiple modes and developed on a three-layer step-index fiber geometry. Evolution of cladding mode resonance spectra of cladding index modulated FBG with the decreasing of fiber diameter is simulated and compared with the core grating. Sensing characteristics of cladding modes resonance of cladding index modulated FBG to the variation of ambient refractive index is detailed and emphasized for cladding modes resonances has a much narrower bandwidth. Results show that cladding index modulated fiber grating has better spectrum for ambient refractive index sensing applications under the same sensitivity with core index modulated fiber grating and may be applied to many field including biochemical sensing and environmental monitoring.