A novel high-sensitivity pressure sensor: Thinned fiber Bragg grating with pressure-sensing polymer

Based on thinned fiber Bragg grating and polymer material, we propose a novel high-sensitivity pressure sensor and obtained a new contribution to the pressure sensitivity, which is dependent on the derivative of the effective refractive index (RI) of core mode with respect to the surrounding medium RI, as well as on the relationship between the polymer RI and the pressure; moreover, it is inversely proportional to Young’s modulus of the polymer material. For the polymer with Young’s modulus of 1.0 MPa, the total pressure sensitivity 1.54×10⁻² MPa⁻¹ can be obtained.