Photonic bandgap Bragg fiber sensors for bending/displacement detection

We demonstrate an amplitude-based bending/displacement sensor that uses a plastic photonic bandgap Bragg fiber with one end coated with a silver layer. The reflection intensity of the Bragg fiber is characterized in response to different displacements (or bending curvatures). We note that the Bragg reflector of the fiber acts as an efficient mode stripper for the wavelengths near the edge of the fiber bandgap, which makes the sensor extremely sensitive to bending or displacements at these wavelengths. Besides, by comparison of the Bragg fiber sensor to a sensor based on a standard multimode fiber with similar outer diameter and length, we find that the Bragg fiber sensor is more sensitive to bending due to the presence of a mode stripper in the form of a multilayer reflector. Experimental results show that the minimum detection limit of the Bragg fiber sensor can be as small as 3 μm for displacement sensing.