Investigation of an in-line fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer based on peanut-shape structure for refractive index sensing

Abstract An in-line fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) for refractive index (RI) sensing was proposed, and the interferometer was fabricated by cascading two peanut-shape structures in the single mode fiber using the commercial fusion splicer. A model of the peanut-shape profile was used to calculate the power distribution of the modes in the device. The RI sensing performances of the peanut-shape structure in-line fiber MZIs with two different arm length (30 and 100 mm) were investigated. As the sensor with a short arm length of 30 mm, the RI sensitivity of − 67 . 355 nm/RIU was achieved for the RI range of 1.33–1.37. As the sensor with a long arm length of 100 mm, the simultaneous RI and temperature measurement was realized to eliminate the temperature and RI cross sensitivity, and the highest RI and temperature sensitivities of − 67 . 953 nm/RIU and 0.073 nm/°C were obtained, respectively.