Long period grating inscribed in multimode fibre interferometer and its application in refractive index sensing

A long period grating (LPG) is inscribed by a femtosecond laser in the multimode region of a singlemode-multimode-singlemode fibre device to provide a compact refractive index sensor. An average sensitivity of 39 nm/RIU and a resolvable index change of 2.56×10 -4 are obtained experimentally with a 44.4 mm long multimode fibre over a measured refractive index range of 1.33-1.35. Because of its compactness, ease of fabrication, linear response, high sensitivity, easy connectivity to other fiberized optical components and low cost, this refractometer could find various applications in chemical and biological sensing.