A chitosan-coated humidity sensor based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer with waist-enlarged fusion bitapers

摘要

A novel humidity sensor, which adopts a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) in normal single mode fiber (SMF) modified by the deposition of chitosan (a moisture-sensitive natural polymer) on the cladding, is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. It is fabricated by the fusion splicing of a segment between the two SMF with waist-enlarged fusion bitapers. This all-fiber MZI based on SMF incorporates intermodal interference between the core mode and the cladding mode. Due to the fact that it is sensitive to external refractive index and that the RI of the chitosan multi-layer film coat depends on the environmental humidity, the SMF-MZI with a chitosan coating layer of nanometer thickness is employed in humidity measuring. The sensitivity of similar to 119.6 pm/RH (relative humidity unit) is achieved within the range from 10% to 90% on the experimental level. Moreover, the chitosan coat has good biocompatibility for in vivo biomedical applications like immunosensing and DNA hybridization detection in the near future. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.