Temperature sensing setup based on an aluminum coated Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

In this paper a temperature sensing setup based on a Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI), coated with aluminum is proposed. Here, this interferometer is fabricated through the concatenation of two sections of Single Mode Fiber (SMF) with a segment of PCF between them. The SMF-PCF joint acts as beam splitter causing the excitement of PCF's, both cladding and fundamental core modes. In the PCF-SMF union, the cladding modes couple again to the core of the SMF, and interfere with the fundamental core mode, this interaction results in an interference pattern spectrum. Moreover, the MZI was coated with aluminum, using the evaporation technique. By adding a thin metal layer to the PCF section, the general thermal coefficient of the structure changes, enhancing the sensitivity of the device. Experimental results show that a visibility of 13 dBm can be obtained and a sensitivity of 250 pm/degrees C. Finally, the proposed structure is simple, cost effective and easy to fabricate.