A simple, compact, and highly sensitive optical fiber directional bend sensor is presented. This device consists of a lateral-offset splicing joint and an up-taper formed through excessive fusion splicing method. The lateral-offset splicing breaks the cylindrical symmetry of the fiber and defines a pair of directions along which the bending response of the Mach–Zehnder interferometer transmission spectrum is different and thus could be used for bending vector measurement. For a curvature range from $-3$ to $3{\mathrm{m}}^{-1}$, the bending sensitivities at 1463.86 nm and 1548.41 nm reach $11.987\mathrm{nm}/{\mathrm{m}}^{-1}$ and $8.697\mathrm{nm}/{\mathrm{m}}^{-1}$, respectively.

© 2012 Optical Society of America

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Citation lists with outbound citation links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Figure files are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article level metrics are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

Related Journal Articles

• Single and double distributed optical amplifier fiber bus networks with wavelength-division multiplexing for photonic sensors (OL)
• High-Spatial-Resolution Distributed Strain Measurement in Optical Fiber with Rayleigh Scatter (AO)
• Rayleigh scattering optical frequency correlation in a single-mode optical fiber (OL)
• Chemical sensing with microbent optical fiber (OL)
• Characteristics of Short-Period Blazed Fiber Bragg Gratings for Use as Macro-Bending Sensors (AO)

Related Conference Papers

• Interrogation of Multiplexed Fiber Grating Sensors Using Frequency-Shifted Interferometer
• Interrogation of Multiplexed Fiber Grating Sensors Using Frequency-Shifted Interferometer
• Frequency-Shifted Interferometer and Its Applications
• Temperature profile measurement in high power optical fiber components using a distributed fiber sensor
• Fiber Grating Sensor Array Interrogation Using a Frequency-Shifted Interferometer and Fourier Analysis