1

A Fiber Optic Micro-Curvature Sensor Based on an

In-line Mach-Zehnder Interferometer and
Erbium-Doped Fiber
Cardoso, V. H. R.1* ; Amaral, M. L. C.1 ; Giraldi, M. T. M. R.2 ; Fernandes, C. S.3 and Costa, J. C. W. A.1
Applied Electromagnetism Laboratory - Federal University of Pará - Belém - Brazil1
Laboratory of Photonics - Military Institute of Engineering - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil2
Applied Electromagnetism Laboratory - Federal University of South and Southeast of Pará - Marabá - Brazil3
victorcard@ufpa.br*

Abstract—A sensor based on an in-line Mach-Zehnder

and Erbium-Doped Fiber for micro curvature measurement
is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor
is composed by of single mode-multimode-Erbium doped
fiber-multimode-single mode fiber (MMF-EDF-MMF) struc-
ture. The experimental results show curvature sensitivities of
−5.18nm/µm, −5.93nm/µm e −5.63nm/µm in the range of
C = 10.25 to 12.23 µm−1 for three resonants dips λ1 , λ2 and
λ3 . In addition, the sensor has advantages of easy fabrication,
low cost, and satisfactory sensitivity, which shows a good results
of sensing of micro curvature in some applications.
Index Terms—Fiber Optical Sensor, Core Diameter Mismatch,
Erbium Doped Fiber, Mach-Zehnder Interferometer
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the SMEMS structure.
I. I NTRODUCTION

M Ach-Zehnder Interferometers (MZI) based on fiber op-

tics using the core diameter mismatch technique proved
to be very interesting because they are compact structures,
easy to manufacture and present low cost [1]. The MZI
principle of operation consists on dividing an incident light
into two equal parts. One part for the measuring arm, the
other part for the reference arm and posteriorly the beams
that pass through these sections are recombined. Thus, the
difference phase generated between the light beam modes
generates a potentially sensitive sensor, which allows the
measurement of several parameters such as refractive index
[2], temperature [3], curvature and vibration [4]. MZI based
on core diameter mismatch (CDM) technique consists on mode
coupling mechanism to transfer optical power between the core
and higher order modes of the cladding through mismatched
sections. Two configurations of MZI combined with the CDM
resulting from the splice between SMF and MMF are the SMS
and SMSMS sensors [5], [6].
In this work, the core diameter mismatch technique was
associated to MZI and we proposed a new sensor configuration
for curvature measurement. The proposed sensor is similar to
the SMSMS structure, however, in place of the SMF in the
middle section, the middle element is given by an Erbium-
doped fiber (EDF). The sensitivity of rare-earth doped fibers
has been previously investigated for the possibility of develop-
ing devices sensitive to temperature and strain [7], [8]. Erbium-
doped fibers have been further studied due to the fact that
they can be used as amplifiers in fiber optic communication
systems, however, some authors have proposed using EDF as
a sensing element. Liu et al [9] in their research used a fiber
doped with a rare-earth, Neodymium, in association with a
Fabry-Pérot interferometer for strain monitoring. Gutiérrez et
al [10] proposed a curvature sensor using an EDF based on
an asymmetric concatenated tapered MZI. This work presents
preliminary results using EDF as the sensor element in the
MZI.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II
discusses the Sensor design and operation principle, Section
III presents the experimental setup, Section IV illustrates
the results of the experiment. Finally, conclusions and future
works are given in Section V.
II. S ENSOR DESIGN AND OPERATION PRINCIPLE
The proposed sensor device present an EDF with LEDF =
20mm between two MMFs with the length of the sections
LM M F = 5mm, and two SMFs as input and output fibers,
as can be seen in Fig. 1. In this structure, the input SMF
is responsible for propagating the injected light towards the
first MMF where high-order modes are excited due to the
large diameter mismatch. Then the sensitive modes are re-
coupled through the second MMF which propagates towards
the output SMF and the propagated modes are combined with
the original core mode and interfere with each other due to the

-30
Optical Power (dBm)
-35
-40
-45
-50
1500 1520 1540 1560
W avelength (nm)
Fig. 2. Spectrum of the proposed sensor with 20 mm EDF section length.
accumulated phase difference. The phase difference between
core and cladding modes is given by [11], [12]:
2π∆nkef f L
Φk = (βc − βcl )L = (1)
λ
Where βc and βcl are the longitudinal propagation constants
of the guided modes in the core and cladding, respectively, λ
is the wavelength of the light injected into the input SMF,
L is the length of the middle EDF that acts as the sensing
element and ∆knef f is the difference between the effective
refractive indexes between the guided modes of the core and
the kth mode of the cladding [6], [11]–[13]. When Φ in
(1) is equal to (2m + 1)π , that is, when the interference
signal reaches the minimum, the displaced wavelength can be
obtained, according to:
2π∆nkef f L
λm = , m = 1, 2, 3... (2)
2m + 1
From (2), the Free Spectral Range (FSR) can be approxi-
mated by [6], [11]–[13]:
λ2
∆λ ≈
∆nm
ef f L
The transmission spectrum of the device was recorded by
an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) and is shown in Fig. 2.
It can be seen that when comparing the FSR of [6] with the
one recorded in this work, the FSR for LEDF is equivalent
to that of LmiddleSM F of 40 mm in [6]. A full understanding
of the coupling mode and optimization of the length of the
EDF requires more detailed studies and beyond the scope of
this article, however, it is possible to state preliminary that
by correctly selecting the length of the EDF, the sensor can
provide an adaptive interference spectrum.
III. P RELIMINARY EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The sensor was submitted to the curvature test using the
setup illustrated in Fig. 3 (a). The curvature measurement
was obtained by fixing the two ends of the sensor in two
2
0 um-1
1580 1600
Fig. 3. (a) Schematic of the experimental setup. (b) Displacement that provoke
the curvature in fiber.
blocks, one of them fixed and the other mobile, at a distance
d from each other to leave the sensor initially stretched, as
shown in Fig. 3 (b). The movable block was placed on a
Linear Translation Stage (LTS) so that the distance is reduced
according to the gradual displacements, and thus induces
curvature in the sensor. The curvature was achieved with a
displacement range of 0 to 2000 µm and with an increment
of 50µm in the LST. It is known that curvature is calculated
by the inverse of the radius of curvature and is given by [4]:
1 4 1
C= ≈ 2 (L20 − d2 ) 2 (4)
R L0
Where d = L0 − ∆L and L0 is the initial distance (75 mm)
between the two blocks. Eq. 4 is used in this paper since h is
too small and very difficult to be measured.
IV. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
The sensor presented a behavior of variation of wavelength
and the analyzes were made in three resonates dips λ1 , λ2 and
(3)
λ3 , between 1530 and 1560 nm. These were chosen because
they present better behavior and are located in a region that
does not present a lot of noise. Fig. 4 shows the spectral
responses of the different curvatures and the displacement of
the wavelengths chosen for the analysis, the arrow in this figure
indicates the direction that this variation is taking place. For a
curvature range of operation from C = 10.25 to 12.23 µm−1 ,
the sensor showed satisfactory sensitivity of, −5.18nm/µm,
−5.93nm/µm and −5.63nm/µm, respectively, as depicted
in Fig. 5, and the observed behavior was a third-order poly-
nomial, with a coefficients of determination (R2 ) of 0.9932,
0.9841, 0.9980.
Table. 1 depicts a comparison between the sensor configura-
tion developed in this work with two sensors used to measure
curvature. The results in this work when compared with the
results of the reference [11] present a greater sensitivity. More-
over, using a structure with a similar sensing principle (MZI)
 3

TABLE I
C OMPARISON OF THE RESULTS OBTAINED WITH OTHER WORKS RELATED
TO CURVATURE MONITORING .
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Dynamic range (µm−1 ) Sensitivity (nm/µm−1 ) R2

[10] 700000 −15x10−6 0.9964
Optical Power (dBm)

-35
[13] 1.1 −20.45 0.9940
This work 1.98 −5.63 0.9980
10,25 mm -1

-40
10,43 mm -1

10,61 mm -1

10,78 mm
-1

-45
10,95 mm

11,12 mm
-1

-1
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
11,29 mm
-1

11,45 mm

11,61 mm
-1

-1
This study was financed in part by the Coordenacao
-50
11,77 mm

11,92 mm
-1

-1
de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior - Brasil
12,08 mm

12,23 mm
-1

-1
(CAPES) - Finance Code 001 and Conselho Nacional de
1530 1535 1540 1545 1550 1555 1560
Desenvolvimento Cientı́fico e Tecnologico (CNPq). It was also
W avelength (nm)
supported by the Federal University of Para (UFPA) and the
Military Engineering Institute (IME).

Fig. 4. Wavelength variation due to curvature change

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