A miniature reflective micro-force sensor based on a microfiber coupler

A compact highly sensitive microfiber coupler based reflective micro-force sensor is presented. The device is fabricated by fusing two twisted optical fibers and then connecting two of the pigtails to form a Sagnac loop. The sensor has a high force sensitivity of similar to 3754 nm/N which is three orders of magnitude larger than traditional optical fiber force sensors, and a low detection limit of similar to 1.6 mu N. The good repeatability is also shown in this paper. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America