Optical fiber magnetic field sensors with peanut-shape structure cascaded with LPFG

An optical fiber magnetic field sensor for the dual-parameter simultaneous measurement is proposed and demonstrated. The sensor head is constructed by a peanut-shape structure and long period fiber grating (LPFG) coated by magnetic fluid (MF). The external magnetic field intensity can be measured by the variation of characteristic wavelength (Dip1 and Dip2) in interference spectrum since the effective refractive index of MF changes with external magnetic field intensity. When the external magnetic field intensity changes from 0 mT to 20 mT, the magnetic field sensitivities of Dip1 and Dip2 are −0.064 nm/mT and −0.041 nm/mT, respectively. Experimental results show that the temperature sensitivities of the Dip1 and Dip2 are 0.233 nm/°C and 0.186 nm/°C, respectively. Therefore, the simultaneous measurement of the magnetic field intensity and temperature is demonstrated based on the sensitive matrix. It has some potential applications in aerospace, environmental monitoring and medical sensing fields.