A fiber-optic strain sensor is demonstrated by using a short length of polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF) as the sensing element inserted in a Sagnac loop interferometer. Spectrum shift in response of strain with a sensitivity of 0.23pm∕με is achieved, and the measurement range, by stretching the PM-PCF only, is up to 32mε. Due to the ultralow thermal sensitivity of the PM-PCF, the proposed strain sensor is inherently insensitive to temperature, eliminating the requirement for temperature compensation.

A novel intrinsic fiber optic pressure sensor realized with a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF) based Sagnac interferometer is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. A large wavelength–pressure coefficient of $3.42\mathrm{nm}/\mathrm{MPa}$ was measured using a $58.4\mathrm{cm}$ long PM-PCF as the sensing element. Owing to the inherently low bending loss and thermal dependence of the PM-PCF, the proposed pressure sensor is very compact and exhibits low temperature sensitivity.

A compact temperature sensor based on a fiber loop mirror (FLM) combined with an alcohol-filled high- birefringence photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The output of the FLM is an interference spectrum with many resonant dips, of which the wavelengths are quite sensitive to the change of the refractive index of the filled alcohol for the interference of the FLM. Simulation analysis predicts a high temperature sensitivity, and experimental results show it reaches up to $6.6\mathrm{nm}/°\mathrm{C}$ for the $6.1\text{-}\mathrm{cm}$-long PCF used in the FLM.

A novel magnetic field fiber sensor based on magnetic fluid is proposed. The sensor is configured as a Sagnac interferometer structure with a magnetic fluid film and a section of polarization maintaining fiber inserted into the fiber loop to produce a sinusoidal interference spectrum for measurement. The output interference spectrum is shifted as the change of the applied magnetic field strength with a sensitivity of 16.7 pm/Oe and a resolution of 0.60 Oe. The output optical power is varied with the change of the applied magnetic field strength with a sensitivity of 0.3998 dB/Oe.

A novel magnetic field sensor based on the magnetic fluid and Mach-Zehnder interferometer is proposed. The sensor takes advantage of the tunable refractive index property of the magnetic fluid and the modal interference property of the collapsed photonic crystal fiber. The achieved sensitivity and resolution of the sensor are 2.367 pm/Oe and 4.22 Oe, respectively. The magnetic field sensor is insensitive to the temperature variation with a temperature coefficient of 3.2 pm/°C.

A magnetic field sensor based on combination of the magnetic fluid and the tunable photonic bandgap effect of photonic crystal fiber is proposed. The magnetic fluid with higher refractive index (>1.45) is prepared and filled into the air-holes of photonic crystal fiber to convert the index guiding fiber into photonic bandgap fiber. The proposed sensor takes full advantage of the ultrahigh sensitivity characteristic of photonic bandgap fiber and achieves a high sensitivity and resolution of 1.56 nm/Oe and 0.0064 Oe, respectively, which are 2-3 orders of magnitude better than other sensors based on magnetic fluid.