Diaphragm-free fiber-optic Fabry-Perot interferometer based on tapered hollow silica tube

A miniature fiber-optic Fabry-Perot interferometer fabricated by splicing a diaphragm-free hollow silica tube to a single-mode fiber and fusing the inner core to a taper is presented. The tapered zone forces lights to propagate from the fiber core into the silica tube, and the lights is reflected from the end faces of the optical fiber and the hollow silica tube. The contrast ratio of the interference fringe is determined by the minimum inner diameter of hollow silica tube. The responses of the proposed interferometer to high-temperature, gas refractive index, liquid refractive index and pressure were measured and were found to be linear with sensitivities of 16.26 pm/°C, 610.47 nm/RIU, −122.36 dB/RIU and 1.56 pm/kPa, respectively.