Fibre-optic sensor for simultaneous measurement of thickness and refractive index of liquid layers

Abstract

In this paper, we present a fibre-optic sensor for simultaneous measurement of refractive index and thickness of liquid layers.We designed an experimental low-coherence setup with two broadband light sources and an extrinsic fibre-optic Fabry–Pérot interferometer acting as the sensing head.We examined how the refractive index of a liquid film and its thickness affect spectrum at the output of a fibre-optic interferometer. We performed a series of experiments using two light sources and only one sensing head. The spectra were collected in ranges of 1220÷1340 nm and 1500÷1640 nm. The obtained results show that using two spectra recorded simultaneously for two wavelength ranges enables to determine thickness in a range of 50÷500 μm, and refractive index of a liquid film in a range of 1:00÷1:41 RIU using only one sensing head.

Keywords

• fibre-optic
• sensors
• interferometry
• fabry–pérot interferometer