Double Notched Long-Period Fiber Grating Characterization for CO(2) Gas Sensing Applications †

In this study, we applied a double-sided inductively coupled plasma (ICP) process to nanostructure long-period fiber grating (LPFG) in order to fabricate a double-notched LPFG (DNLPFG) sensor with a double-sided surface corrugated periodic grating. Using the sol-gel method, we also added thymol blue and ZnO to form a gas sensing layer, thus producing a DNLPFG CO(2) gas sensor. The resulting sensor is the first double-sided etching sensor used to measure CO(2). The experimental results showed that as the CO(2) concentration increased, the transmission loss increased, and that the smaller the fiber diameter, the greater the sensitivity and the greater the change in transmission loss. When the diameter of the fiber was 32 μm (and the period was 570 μm) and the perfusion rate of CO(2) gas was 15%, the maximum loss variation of up to 3.881 dB was achieved, while the sensitivity was 0.2146 dB/% and the linearity was 0.992. These results demonstrate that the DNLPG CO(2) gas sensor is highly sensitive.