An optical fiber magnetic field sensor based on the single-mode–multimode–single-mode (SMS) structure and magnetic fluid (MF) is proposed and demonstrated. By using a piece of no-core fiber as the multimode waveguide in the SMS structure and MF sealed in a capillary tube as the magnetic sensitive media, which totally immersing the no-core fiber, an all-fiber magnetic sensor was fabricated. Interrogation of the magnetic field strength can be achieved either by measuring the dip wavelength shift of the transmission spectrum or by detecting the transmission loss at a specific wavelength. A demonstration sensor with sensitivities up to $905\mathrm{pm}/\mathrm{mT}$ and $0.748\mathrm{dB}/\mathrm{mT}$ was fabricated and investigated. A theoretical model for the design of the proposed device was developed and numerical simulations were performed.

A high-sensitivity vector magnetic field is proposed and demonstrated. The sensor consists of a side-polished-fiber (SPF)-based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) structure integrated with ferrofluid. Because of the high refractive index sensitivity of the SPR scheme and the outstanding magneto optical properties of ferrofluid, the sensor shows a high sensitivity (up to 598.7 pm/Oe) to magnetic field intensity. Moreover, owing to the non-circular-symmetric geometry of the SPF and non-uniform distribution of the ferrofluid around the SPF, the sensor exhibits a sensitivity of $-5.63\mathrm{nm}/\mathrm{deg}$ to the orientation of the magnetic field. The proposed vector magnetic field sensor, integrating over magnetic, plasmonic, and fiber-optic schemes, is highly sensitive to both the intensity and orientation of the magnetic field simultaneously, and holds potential in applications in many fields, such as medicine, industry, and the military.

The fiber geometry, fiber parameters and mode-guiding properties are crucial for realizing high-performance fiber-based sensors. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a few-mode fiber (FMF)–based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor. The FMF-SPR sensor was fabricated via side-polishing a few-mode fiber and coating a thin layer of gold film, on the basis of the optimization of fiber geometry, thickness of the gold film and mode selection, which were performed with the finite element method. The refractive index (RI) sensing performance of three such sensors with different residual fiber thicknesses were investigated. In the RI range from 1.333 to 1.404, the highest sensitivity up to 4903 nm/RIU and a figure of merit of 46.1 RIU⁻¹ are achieved. For testing the bovine serum albumin (BSA) solution, an averaged BSA RI sensitivity of 6328 nm/RIU and an averaged BSA concentration sensitivity of 1.17 nm/(mg/ml) are realized. Benefiting from only a few modes supported in the FMF, a smaller line-width of the SPR spectrum is obtained, which further results in a higher figure of merit (FOM). Moreover, when combined with the superiority of the mode-multiplexing technology brought by the FMF, the FMF-SPR sensors may find applications in biochemical analysis with high performance and high throughputs.

A novel all-fiber sensor based on cascaded singlemode-no-core-singlemode (SNS) and siglemode-multimode-singlemode (SMS) fiber structure is proposed and investigated. Simulation results show that for the given fibers, by appropriately choosing the lengths of no-core fiber and multimode fiber, the transmission spectrum will exhibit two distinguishable dips corresponding to SNS and SMS, respectively. The simultaneous measurement of liquids' refractive index (RI) and temperature can be realized by monitoring the two dips' central wavelength shifts. According to the simulations, a corresponding sensor is fabricated and tested. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the sensor and show that the sensor has the RI and temperature sensitivities of 113.66 nm/RIU and 9.2 pm/°C, respectively.

A vector magnetometer, composed of a side-polished single-mode-multimode-single-mode fiber structure coated with ferrofluids, is proposed and investigated. The side-polishing of the multimode fiber can expose the evanescent field to the surrounding ferrofluids, whose refractive index in the vicinity of the polished surface can be tuned by both the intensity and direction of the applied magnetic field, thus in turn realizing the magnetic vector sensing. The sensing principles are illustrated in details, and the sensing performances, especially the dependence on the residual thickness (RT) of the side-polished multimode fiber, are well investigated experimentally. It is found that the decrease of the RT can significantly improve the sensitivity to both the magnetic field intensity and the direction, and the highest intensity and direction sensitivities of −0.053 nm/Oe and −5.68 nm/degree have been achieved respectively, when the RT reduces to 50.5 μm. The proposed vector magnetometer, featuring the advantages of simple structure, low cost, and ease of fabrication, can find the potential applications in the fields such as industry, military, and environment.