Optic fiber sensors fabricated by laser-micromachining

Recent progress in using excimer and femtosecond lasers to fabricate functional fiber-optic sensing devices is reviewed extensively in this paper. The application of femtosecond lasers is to fabricate fiber gratings and in-line fiber-optic interferometers for measurements of strain, temperature and refractive index. The application of 157 nm excimer lasers is to create fiber gratings and in-line fiber interferometers for measurements of strain, acceleration, pressure, temperature and refractive index. Compared with conventional optical fiber sensors, these novel micro optical fiber sensors fabricated by laser-micromachining have outstanding advantages, such as fast and direct formation, easy mass-production with ultra-low-cost, good reproducibility, excellent optical performance, low temperature cross-sensitivity, etc., which pave a way to form a new generation of miniature fiber-optic sensors for many applications. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.