A biocompatible and robust fiber surface plasmon resonance (SPR) temperature sensor was fabricated based on an alcohol-filled hollow-core fiber. The fabrication process of this designed sensor included Ag film coating, liquid injection and fusion splicing, which was low-cost and efficient. Due to the high refractive index sensitivity of SPR effect and the high thermal optical coefficient of alcohol, the designed sensor performed well in temperature sensing, whose linear sensitivity reached as high as 1.16 nm/°C in the range of 35.5 °C ~ 70.1 °C. Being small in size, low in fabrication cost and highly sensitive in performance, this sensor is suitable for temperature detection during biological and chemical reactions, and has the potential to realizing multi-parameter or distributed temperature measurement.

This paper proposes a highly sensitive surface plasmon resonance (SPR) refractive index sensor based on the photonic crystal fiber (PCF). The optical properties of the PCF are investigated by modulating the refractive index of a liquid analyte. The finite element method (FEM) is used to calculate and analyze the PCF structure. After optimization, the fiber can achieve high linearity of 0.9931 and an average refractive index sensitivity of up to 14,771.4 nm/RIU over a refractive index range from 1.47 to 1.52, with the maximum wavelength sensitivity of 18,000.5 nm/RIU. The proposed structure can be used in various sensing applications, including biological monitoring, environmental monitoring, and chemical production with the modification and analysis of the proposed structure.

A photonic crystal fiber (PCF) sensor based on gold nanowires able to detect changes in surface plasmon resonance (SPR) was proposed and numerically investigated through the finite element method. To facilitate real-time detection, the analyte in this sensor was located outside the optical fiber. The effects of diameters of both air hole and gold wires on the sensing characteristics of the sensor were discussed. The sensor was designed to detect liquids with refractive indexes ranging between 1.33 and 1.36. The numerical simulations indicated that sensor structure improved its functionality. The maximum spectral sensitivity reached 9200 nm/RIU over the entire refractive index range. The average spectral sensitivity was estimated to be 5933 nm/RIU, and corresponded to a sensor resolution of 2.81 × 10⁻⁶ RIU. These findings look very promising for future use in detection of liquid.

We propose a dual-channel surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor based on hollow-core fiber (HCF) for the simultaneous measurement of the liquid refractive index (RI) and ambient temperature. The simultaneous monitoring of two parameters can effectively realize the temperature compensation of liquid RI measurement. One channel is coated with a silver film to sense the liquid RI, the other channel is coated with a gold film and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to sense the ambient temperature, and the cross sensitivity of the multi-parameter measurement is solved using the dual-wavelength matrix method. The sensing performance of the proposed sensor is investigated both theoretically and experimentally, which proves that it can achieve high sensitivity in a relatively wide measurement range. The experiment shows that the liquid RI sensitivity is as high as 2400.079 nm/RIU in the RI range of 1.3333–1.3770, and the temperature sensitivity is −1.29 nm/°C in the temperature range of 40 °C–90 °C. This work provides a new scheme for the multi-parameter measurement, and the proposed sensor has the advantages of simple and compact structure, low cost, wide measurement range and high sensitivity, which promises broad application prospects in the simultaneous monitoring of liquid RI and temperature.

In this work, a new method was explored for developing temperature and relative humidity (RH) optical fiber sensors based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR). A SPR optical fiber sensor coated with carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was proposed for the simultaneous measurement of RH and temperature. The sensor was fabricated by connecting two no-core optical fibers (NCFs) using multimode optical fibers (MMFs). Metal films were deposited on the surface of NCFs and further coated with CMC and PDMS. CMC coating was used for RH sensing based on the change of refractive index (RI) caused by water absorption; PDMS coating was used for temperature sensing based on its RI change with temperature. Univariate analysis showed that there was very weak interaction between RH and temperature measurement. For RH sensing, the sensitivities were −1.230 nm/RH%, −2.932 nm/RH% and −0.431 nm/RH% when RH were 50%~65%, 65%~70% and 70%~80%, respectively; for temperature sensing, the sensitivity was −2.213 nm/°C at 10 °C~50 °C. The proposed sensor can not only respond to both temperature and RH variation, but also compensate the cross sensitivity between the two parameters. It is simple in structure, easy to manufacture and efficient in the simultaneous detection of temperature and RH, which promises great application prospects in the fields of agriculture, food industry, biological field and other production activities.

A surface plasmon resonance (SPR) liquid refractive index sensor based on photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is proposed. The PCF is made of the exposed core structure, and the gold film is formed by electron beam evaporation within its defects. The sensitivity of the sensor is improved by coating graphene on the surface of the gold film. The experimental results show that the sensitivity of the sensor is increased by 390 nm/RIU after the introduction of graphene, and finally to 2290 nm/RIU. The experiment and simulation have a good consistency. Significantly, the sensor can be reused, and the measurement accuracy can be maintained.