An in-line fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) based on the hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) for refractive index (RI) measurement is proposed in this paper. The FPI is formed by splicing both ends of a short section of the HCPCF to single mode fibers (SMFs) and cleaving the SMF pigtail to a proper length. The RI response of the sensor is analyzed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. The results show that the FPI sensor has linear response to external RI and good repeatability. The sensitivity calculated from the maximum fringe contrast is –136 dB/RIU. A new spectrum differential integration (SDI) method for signal processing is also presented in this study. In this method, the RI is obtained from the integrated intensity of the absolute difference between the interference spectrum and its smoothed spectrum. The results show that the sensitivity obtained from the integrated intensity is about –1.34×10⁵ dB/RIU. Compared with the maximum fringe contrast method, the new SDI method can provide the higher sensitivity, better linearity, improved reliability, and accuracy, and it’s also convenient for automatic and fast signal processing in real-time monitoring of RI.

提出一种在线型光纤法布里-珀罗折射率传感器。传感器由空芯光子晶体光纤两端熔接单模光纤而成。理论分析并实验验证了其折射率传感特性。结果表明, 干涉条纹对比度随溶液折射率的增加而减小, 与理论模拟一致。提出利用标准差解调方法对干涉谱进行分析, 标准差解调方法具有更好的线性度和准确性, 可靠性更高, 便于编程实现自动化、快速的数据分析和溶液折射率的实时检测。