Optics Communications 400 (2017) 74–78

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Optics Communications
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optics

Compact vector fiber-optic displacement sensor using an asymmetric

Mach–Zehnder interferometer
Xunli Yin a, *, Ruixiang Zhou b
a Faculty of Science, Xi’an Shiyou University, No. 18, Dianzi 2nd Road, Yanta District, Xi’an 710065, China
b School of Physics, Northwest University, No. 229, Taibai North Road, Beilin District, Xi’an 710069, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: We demonstrate a fiber-optic Mach–Zehnder interferometer for vector displacement measurement. The sensor
Fiber optics sensor is a compact structure in which a short length of thin-core fiber (TCF) is sandwiched between two single mode
Vector displacement measurement fibers (SMFs) by core-aligned fusion splicing. The TCF stub contains a refractive index modification (RIM) region
Refractive index modulation which serves as a mode-coupling window over the interface between the TCF’s core and cladding. We employed
femtosecond laser-based direct inscription to achieve precise position of the RIM over a chosen length close to
the core–cladding interface of the TCF and ensure large and stable refractive index increase in the inscribed
region. Strong coupling between core and cladding modes is generated at the RIM, resulting in a well-defined
interference spectrum in transmission. The transmission spectrum exhibits strong bending dependence and
direction discrimination due to the azimuthally asymmetrical distribution of the RIM over the fiber’s cross section.
We achieved vector displacement measurement by wavelength interrogation of the interference spectrum. In the
frequency spectrum, the intensity of a cladding mode resonance presents linear response to displacement as well
as temperature independence.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Orientation information is one of the critical issues for displacement
measurement in civil engineering as it can be used for monitoring the
verticality of buildings, towers, bridge piles, and many other structures,
especially when the initiation source is unknown. Up to now, there have
been many efforts to develop optical fiber bending vector sensors to
simultaneously identify both the amplitude and orientation of applied
bending. Fiber bend sensors show promise because of their unique prop-
erties [1–3], such as the capacity to sense single-point displacement in
hard-to-reach spaces, controllable cross-sensitivities and very compact
size, making them amenable to embedded measurement. Among optical
fiber bend sensors, diverse special fiber gratings have shown outstanding
directional sensitivity to fiber bending deformation. Fiber grating-based
bend sensor elements are usually inscribed into specifically designed
fibers with asymmetrical core or cladding geometry, for example,
multicore fibers [4], eccentric core fibers [5], and D-shaped fibers [6].
Alternatively, directional bend sensitivity can be introduced during the
grating inscription process, for example, taper-assisted tilted fiber Bragg
gratings [7], and grating pairs with orthogonal distribution inside the
fiber core [8]. However these fiber grating devices have also some dis-
advantages, such as difficulty of splicing special fiber to standard fiber,
high cost of special fiber manufacture, low sensitivity to bending and
complicated grating inscription techniques. In comparison, fiber-optic
interferometers have shown good performance, simplicity, and great
sensitivity to fiber bending due to their unique characteristics [9–11].
Of course, for vector bend sensing, structural asymmetry must be
introduced into the fiber interferometer whilst it is being fabricated,
thereby generating polarized cladding modes with unique mode field
shapes. Such modes react differently to perturbations inside and outside
of the fiber (especially to transversal strain), providing good potential
for high sensitivity bend measurement, whilst distinguishing between
positive and negative bend directions. A further alternative is the fiber
discontinuity technique, for example a lateral-offset and up-taper [12],
in which core-to-cladding coupling yields vector bending information.
However, such asymmetrical structures are challenging to splicing to
standard fiber and mechanical protection techniques must be provided
to ensure performance in order to allow remote interrogation with
low loss in a robust sensor. Specialty optical fibers, such as photonic
crystal fibers (PCF) [13] and multi-core optical fibers [14], offer new
possibilities to develop vector bend sensors. However, the disadvantages
of these sensors, including low reproducibility, high insertion losses,

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: lixunyin@163.com (X. Yin), 1995828zhou@163.com (R. Zhou).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optcom.2017.04.069
Received 12 March 2017; Received in revised form 25 April 2017; Accepted 26 April 2017
0030-4018/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
X. Yin, R. Zhou Optics Communications 400 (2017) 74–78

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic diagram of the Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI), (b) image of
the MZI, including RIM region, core and cladding of TCF.

Fig. 2. Interference spectra (IS) of sensor with and without RIM region. (For interpretation
high costs and complex fabrication, demonstrate the need for further of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version
improvements. of this article.)
The femtosecond (fs) laser-based three-dimensional direct writing
technique can easily ablate part of the fiber’s cladding and also modify
the refractive index (RI) of the fiber [15–17]. Localized and positive RI
modification without mechanically damaging the fiber can be used to
fabricate an asymmetrical ‘‘bridge’’ for coupling and recoupling between
core and cladding modes, leading to the ability to distinguish bend
directions along two orthogonal bend axes.
In this paper, we propose a compact interferometer for vector dis-
placement measurement. The device is produced by using a femtosecond
laser-induced RIM along the interface between core and cladding of a
thin-core fiber sandwiched between two transmission fibers. The RIM
region acts as a ‘‘bridge’’ for enhancing the coupling of core-to-cladding
modes, as shown in Fig. 1(a). Well-defined interference spectra have
been achieved as expected, once we optimized the RIM inscription
process. The key to the success of this device as a vector bend sensor
lies in the inherent small core mismatch between the two fibers (which
allows the coupling between core and cladding modes) and the precisely
localized RIM inscription (thanks to the highly focused and directed
femtosecond laser inscription). As expected, the interferometer presents
Fig. 3. Micrograph of TCF-MZI with different TCF lengths, and FC for several TCF lengths.
orientation-dependent sensitivity to fiber bending, making it a good
candidate for the distinguishing bending in two orthogonal planes.

2. Principle and sensing system
A TCF with the core and cladding diameters (mode-field) of 4.4 µm
and 125.3 µm, respectively (manufactured by Fibercore in UK) was
sandwiched between two single mode fibers (SMFs) by self-aligned
splicing using a commercial compact fusion splicer. A RIM (i.e. wind
‘‘bridge’’ was formed by a well-established direct writing technique
using a Ti:sapphire laser system, emitting linearly polarized light at
800 nm in the TEM00 spatial mode. The pulse length was 50 fs, with
a beam diameter of <8.5 mm and a repetition rate of 1 kHz. The
average pulse energy of the laser was fixed at 0.05 mJ (controlled by
an attenuator). The fs laser beam was precisely focused by an objective
lens to a focal spot 5 µm in diameter, along one side of the core–cladding
interface in the fiber. The fiber was mounted on a 3-axis stage, which
can smoothly translate the fiber at a speed of 1 µm/s, thereby controlling
the region of laser exposure. The fiber inscription was observed in real
time with a CCD camera. As the zoomed photographic image clearly
shows in Fig. 1(b) that a permanent RIM is inscribed over a small part
of fiber core and cladding.
To our knowledge, the effective mode mismatched SMF–TCF–SMF
structure provides coupling and recoupling between core and cladding
modes at the two splices, resulting in an interference spectrum. How-
ever, because of the small core mode field mismatch between TCF and
SMF, the coupling efficiency is so weak that an interference spectrum
of small fringe contrast (FC) is obtained, as the blue curve shows in
Fig. 2. When the RIM window is fabricated within the TCF, the raised
refractive index region breaks the waveguide’s cylindrical symmetry
and promotes propagation of higher spatial order core modes. Energy is
strongly coupled to cladding modes, especially to the low-order modes
that mainly participate in the interference in the MZI. As a result, the
fringe contrast of the interference spectrum is improved greatly from
less than 5 to 21 dB, whilst the free spectral range (FSR) remains
unchanged, as the red curve in Fig. 2 shows. The effective refractive
index and spatial field distribution of cladding modes (determining the
interference spectrum performance) strongly depend on the length as
well as the shape of the RIM.
In the experiment, we characterized how the interference spectrum
is influenced by the length of the RIM window. The length and position
of the RIM window were precisely controlled by keeping the focused
laser position fixed and moving the TCF mounted on the three-axis
translation stage. We found that, at a fixed laser power, the length of the
RIM region will significantly determine the coupling of core-to-cladding
modes, and therefore influence the interferometer’s fringe contrast and
transmission loss, as shown in Fig. 3. Although increasing the RIM
length is helpful for increasing the FC of the interference spectrum, the
optical transmission loss also increases simultaneously. Furthermore, we
discovered experimentally that, as the RIM length increases to 1100 µm,
some of the interference fringes vanish because the long RIM increases

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X. Yin, R. Zhou Optics Communications 400 (2017) 74–78

Fig. 4. (a) Interference spectra of sensors with different TCF lengths, (b) FSR versus TCF lengths.

Fig. 5. Schematic configuration of experiment setup of vector displacement measurement.

the propagation loss of core mode and especially the low-order cladding
modes that propagate along fiber cladding close to the fiber core. By trial
and error, we optimized the RIM region size and position as follows.
When the window length was set to about 300 µm, we obtained well-
defined interference fringes with large FC and low transmission loss; the
window positions within the TCF (near the input end, centered or near
the output end) do slightly influence the interference spectrum; the FSR
of the interference spectrum is independent of the position, length and
shape of RIM window.
The length of the TCF is the only factor determining the FSR. Fig. 4(a)
shows the interference spectra for a range of lengths of the TCF stub,
with identical window inscription. The figure clearly shows that the FSR
decreases with the increasing TCF length because of the phase difference
change between core mode and cladding modes. In Fig. 4(b) we plot the
FSR as a function of TCF length.

3. Experimental results and discussion

In the experiment, a broadband source (BBS) was launched into

the device and an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) with a resolution
of 0.02 nm was used for spectral analysis. A schematic view of the
experimental setup is shown in Fig. 5. Each end of the 2 cm-long sensor
was mounted in a horizontal rotation chuck on top of a fixed three-axis
translation stage. The vertical translation resolution of the output end
stage was 2 µm. As the output end vertical stage was raised, the sensor
was displaced vertically, resulting in bending in a vertical plane.
The bend orientation relative to the azimuthal position of the RIM
region was able to be adjusted by synchronously rotating the two fiber
chucks. In Fig. 6(a) and (b), the resonant spectral dips exhibit either blue
or red wavelength shifts, depending on the orientation of the applied
displacement. Fig. 6(c) shows the spectral sensitivity of the sensor when
subjected to a range of displacements in various azimuthal orientations.
We see that the device exhibits strong orientation-dependent wave-
length response as function of displacement: The wavelength shifts to
shorter wavelength at orientation 0◦ (set at an arbitrary initial position), Fig. 6. Shift to shorter wavelength of a given resonant spectral feature as the sensor
and towards longer wavelength at orientation 180◦ . This is the result fiber is bent; (b) Shift to longer wavelength of the same resonant spectral feature as the
of the asymmetric inscription of the RIM region. In an orthogonal sensor fiber is bent in the opposite direction; (c) resonant spectral feature wavelength as
direction, with the sensor is rotated to 90◦ , similar spectral responses a function of displacement for bend orientations 0◦ , 90◦ , 180◦ and 270◦ .

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X. Yin, R. Zhou
Fig. 7. Frequency spectral responses to displacements of low-order cladding modes.
The inset shows that the first low-order cladding mode intensity is a linear function of
displacement.
are achieved in opposite directions: a shift to shorter wavelength at
orientation 90◦ and longer wavelength at orientation 270◦ .
In the experiment, we have found that transmitted optical intensity
is displacement dependent, although the intensities of different spectral
features each vary with displacement in different ways. To analyze
how the different cladding modes that participate in the interference
respond to displacement, we transformed the spectra for different
displacements into the frequency domain, as shown in Fig. 7. We see that
the intensity of first low-order cladding mode decreases monotonically
with increasing displacement. The inset in Fig. 7 plots the normalized
intensity of this first low-order cladding mode against displacement.
The relationship appears linear. The intensity of the cladding mode is
orientation-independent and only decreases with fiber bending, after
analyzing the frequency-spectral responses to displacements in different
orientations. This result provides another interrogation method for
measuring displacement, as long as we are not concerned about the
displacement orientation information.
In order to characterize thermal properties of the sensor, we placed
it into an oven capable of heating it from 20 to 1100 ◦ C. We raised
the temperature in steps, and held each temperature for long enough to
ensure a uniform temperature distribution in the oven before recording
the spectrum. With temperature rising, the spectrum shifted to longer
wavelength as expected. See Fig. 8. After several annealing cycles, the
sensor was able to withstand temperatures up to 900 ◦ C. Fig. 8 shows
that the response is approximately linear, with a mean sensitivity of 94.3
pm/◦ C (as shown in Fig. 8). The high temperature stability of the sensor
strongly suggests that the window belongs to the Type II photoinduced
RIM [13]. In the experiment, we found that interference spectrum
disappears with the increasing temperature above 900 ◦ C. We propose
that this is because, as the fiber temperature rises above 900 ◦ C, the
nonequilibrium glass structure gradually transitions to the equilibrium
liquid phase (a collection of smaller units), which allows the glass
structure to relax to a new stable state. Eventually, the ‘‘bridge’’ vanishes
altogether and the sensor will no longer function. When we analyzed the
optical frequency spectra at different temperatures we also found that
temperature changes do not influence the intensities of cladding modes,
because the temperature only modulates the sensor length and refractive
index but not the propagation loss of the cladding modes. This provides
a good possibility of compensating for unwanted temperature perturba-
tions during wavelength-referenced vector displacement measurement.
4. Conclusions
We fabricated a fiber-optic interferometer using a femtosecond laser.
The sensor comprises a micro-window which comprises a permanently
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Optics Communications 400 (2017) 74–78
Fig. 8. Wavelength of an interference spectral feature versus temperature during heating
and subsequent cooling.
photoinscribed refractive index modulated region over the interface
between core and cladding of a short length of thin core optical fiber
that is fusion spliced between two SMFs. The whole sensor can be as
short as 2 mm (or possibly even less) and does not require precise
fabrication tolerances. The sensor presents excellent performances of
vector displacement sensing by spectral wavelength interrogation, and
temperature-independent displacement sensing by cladding mode inten-
sity interrogation.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (No. 61605159), Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi
Province (No. S2016YFJQ0899), Natural Science Foundation of North-
west University (No. 338020009).
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