Miniaturized fiber taper reflective interferometer for high temperature measurement

We present an ultra-small all-silica high temperature sensor based on a reflective Fabry-Perot modal interferometer (FPMI). Our FPMI is made of a micro-cavity (similar to 4.4 mu m) directly fabricated into a fiber taper probe less than 10 mu m in diameter. Its sensing head is a miniaturized single mode-multimode fiber configuration without splicing. The sensing mechanism of FPMI is the interference among reflected fundamental mode and excited high-order modes at the end-faces. Its temperature sensitivity is similar to 20 pm/degrees C near the wavelength of 1550 nm. This kind of sensor can work in harsh environments with ultra-large temperature gradient, but takes up little space because of its unique geometry and small size. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America