Humidity responsive photonic sensor based on a carboxymethyl cellulose mechanical actuator

We describe an intuitive and simple method for exploiting humidity-driven volume changes in carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) to fabricate a humidity responsive actuator on a glass fiber substrate. We optimize this platform to generate a photonic-based humidity sensor where CMC coated on a fiber optic containing a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) actuates a mechanical strain in response to humidity changes. The humidity-driven mechanical deformation of the FBG results in a large linear change in Bragg resonance wavelength over the relative humidity range of 5%–40%. The measurement uncertainty over this relative humidity range is ±2% (k = 1).