Absolute Strain Measurement Based On A Microfiber Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

A microfiber-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) for measurement of absolute strain is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. The diameter of the microfiber is optimized to induce the negative thermo-optic effect in the microfiber MZI and the temperature sensitivity of the microfiber MZI is successfully suppressed. When the diameter of the microfiber is similar to 5 mu m, the temperature sensitivity of the microfiber-MZI is dramatically mitigated. We apply the proposed microfiber MZI for absolute strain measurement and its strain sensitivity is measured to be similar to 7.13x10(-2) nm/mu epsilon.