Highly sensitive strain sensor based on helical structure combined with Mach-Zehnder interferometer in multicore fiber

Optical fiber sensors for strain measurement have been playing important roles in structural health monitoring for buildings, tunnels, pipelines, aircrafts, and so on. A highly sensitive strain sensor based on helical structures (HSs) assisted Mach-Zehnder interference in an all-solid heterogeneous multicore fiber (MCF) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Due to the HSs, a maximum strain sensitivity as high as −61.8 pm/με was experimentally achieved. This is the highest sensitivity among interferometer-based strain sensors reported so far, to the best of our knowledge. Moreover, the proposed sensor has the ability to discriminate axial strain and temperature, and offers several advantages such as repeatability of fabrication, robust structure and compact size, which further benefits its practical sensing applications.