A novel optical fiber sensor based on a balloon-shaped bent single-mode (BSBS) fiber structure incorporating a long-period grating (LPG) for simultaneous measurement of displacement and temperature is described and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor is fabricated by splicing a BSBS fiber structure based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with a long-period grating (LPG). The interference dip formed by the BSBS fiber structure is sensitive to external displacement and temperature variation, while that formed by an LPG only depends on temperature, displacement, and temperature and, therefore, can be unambiguously and simultaneously measured by this sensor. Experimental results show that this sensor offers a high displacement sensitivity of -306 pm/μ m over the displacement range of 0-80 μm and a temperature sensitivity of 42.9 pm/°C over the temperature range of 20-45 °C. Due to its high measurement sensitivities, low cost, and good repeatability, this sensor could be a realistic candidate for applications where displacement and temperature need to be measured simultaneously.

The possibility of making new SMF-NCF-SMF- long period fiber grating (SNS-LPG) by periodically embedding no-core fiber (NCF) is demonstrated. It is shown that an 11-period SNS-LPG can exhibit an extremely high loss resonant dip (>20 dB). The theoretical analysis shows good agreement with the measured transmission spectrum. We investigated the refractive index and temperature sensitivity of SNS-LPG, and achieved the average wavelength sensitivity of 141.837 nm/RIU in the range of 1.333-1.400 RIU. The sensor also exhibits a lower temperature sensitivity (-6.43 pm/°C and 0.005 dB/°C).

A multimode fiber chirped long-period grating (MCLPG) is proposed and studied as a sensor for simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature. This sensor consists of linear chirped multimode fiber and fixed-length single-mode fiber. The numerical analyses of the transmission spectrum and coupling mode are carried out to obtain appropriate period arrangement. The experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical results. The chirped period arrangement induces a transmission spectrum with double peaks. Therefore, the simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature is realized by observing the wavelength shift of the two peaks. In addition, the high sensitivity of two resonance peaks provides a good resolution for the sensor.

A segmented long period fiber grating (LPFG)-based torsion sensor with both high sensitivity and ability to discriminate torsion direction is proposed and experimentally investigated. The sensor is made up of three spatial orthogonal short LPFGs by using a CO₂ laser notched method. Experimental results show that the torsion sensitivities can reach −0.54 and 0.33 dB/(rad/m) in dip depth and 0.30 and −0.14 nm/(rad/m) in resonance wavelength for clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively, in a single polarization state. Torsion rate and torsion direction can be measured simultaneously by the sensor. Moreover, the temperature sensitivity of the sensor has been determined as 0.067 nm/°C. Therefore, the proposed segmented-LPFG would have great potential applications in engineering and fiber sensors.

We have proposed a novel tapered-single mode-no core-single mode (TSNS) fiber refractometer based on multimode interference. The TSNS structure exhibits a high contrast ratio (>15 dB) and a uniform interference fringe. The influence of different lengths and diameters of the TSNS on the refractive index unit (RIU) sensitivity was investigated. The experimental investigations indicated a maximum sensitivity of 1517.28 nm/RIU for a refractive index of 1.417 and low-temperature sensitivity (<10 pm/°C). The experimental and simulation results are also in good agreement.

A novel refractometer based on multimode fiber (MMF) embedded single mode-no core-single mode (ME-SNS) fiber structure is presented and investigated in detail. The ME-SNS structure has a higher refractive index (RI) sensitivity because of the stronger evanescent field generated by RI modulation. There is an obvious attenuation dip when 3 segment MMFs are embedded in single mode-no core-single mode (SNS) fiber structure. Total length of sensing unit is only 1.8 mm. Experimental results show that the maximal RI and the temperature sensitivity of the ME-SNS fiber structure are 567.158 nm/RIU and 0.009 nm/°C.