Tapered fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer for simultaneous measurement of refractive index and temperature

An approach to achieve simultaneous measurement of refractive index and temperature is proposed by using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer realized on tapered single-mode optical fiber. The attenuation peak wavelength of the interference with specific order in the transmission spectrum shifts with changes in the environmental refractive index and temperature. By utilizing S-band and C/L-band light sources, simultaneous discrimination of refractive index and temperature with the tapered fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer is demonstrated with the corresponding sensitivities of -23.188 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) and 0.071 nm/ degrees C, and -26.087 nm/RIU (blueshift) and 0.077 nm/degrees C (redshift) for the interference orders of 169 and 144, respectively.