Mach-Zehnder interferometer formed by a large core-offset splicing fiber for temperature and displacement measurement

A novel, versatile, compact all-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) for temperature and displacement sensing was proposed and demonstrated in this paper. It was fabricated by splicing a section of single mode fiber (SMF) between two SMFs with a large core-offset at two splicing joints, which were used to excite cladding modes and couple to the fiber core. And then the interference occurred between the cladding and external substances was utilized to measure temperature and displacement. Experimental results showed that the sensitivity of temperature measurement could be up to 25.26 pm/°C and the sensitivity of displacement measurement was 96.72 nW/mm. In addition, because the measurement of temperature and displacement could be implemented respectively by recording the light wavelength shifts and light intensity variation, temperature and displacement could be measured simultaneously with only one sensor probe. Meanwhile, there were some other advantages of the sensor, such as simple structure, small size, high sensitivity and low cost.