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A damage identification system of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) structures is investigated using fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors and back propagation (BP) neural network. FBG sensors are applied to construct the sensing network to detect the structural dynamic response signals generated by active actuation. The damage identification model is built based on the BP neural network. The dynamic signal characteristics extracted by the Fourier transform are the inputs, and the damage states are the outputs of the model. Besides, damages are simulated by placing lumped masses with different weights instead of inducing real damages, which is confirmed to be feasible by finite element analysis (FEA). At last, the damage identification system is verified on a CFRP plate with 300 mm × 300 mm experimental area, with the accurate identification of varied damage states. The system provides a practical way for CFRP structural damage identification.

An in-line fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) based on the hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) for refractive index (RI) measurement is proposed in this paper. The FPI is formed by splicing both ends of a short section of the HCPCF to single mode fibers (SMFs) and cleaving the SMF pigtail to a proper length. The RI response of the sensor is analyzed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. The results show that the FPI sensor has linear response to external RI and good repeatability. The sensitivity calculated from the maximum fringe contrast is –136 dB/RIU. A new spectrum differential integration (SDI) method for signal processing is also presented in this study. In this method, the RI is obtained from the integrated intensity of the absolute difference between the interference spectrum and its smoothed spectrum. The results show that the sensitivity obtained from the integrated intensity is about –1.34×105 dB/RIU. Compared with the maximum fringe contrast method, the new SDI method can provide the higher sensitivity, better linearity, improved reliability, and accuracy, and it’s also convenient for automatic and fast signal processing in real-time monitoring of RI.

A label-free immunosensor based on optical fiber Fabry–Perot interferometer (FPI) is proposed. The FPI is fabricated by splicing both ends of a short section of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber to single mode fibers (SMFs) and cleaving the SMF pigtail to proper length. Then, the end surface of sensor is silanization modified and immobilized with goat anti-rabbit immunoglobulin G (IgG) by covalent binding to detect the specific rabbit IgG. The antibody immobilization and antigen binding will change the thickness of sensing layer, leading to the interference spectrum change of the FPI sensor. The responses of the sensor to immune reaction are analyzed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. Results show that after antibody immobilization, the wavelength increases by 60 pm and the fringe contrast decreases by about 1 dB. And for antigen binding, the wavelength shows an obvious increase by 190 pm and the fringe contrast decreases by 2.15 dB. The wavelength shift during the antibody-antigen binding process conforms to the immune reaction kinetics. With the advantages of compact structure, good performance, capacity for real-time and label-free detection, easy fabrication, and low cost, the proposed optical fiber FPI sensor shows wide application prospect in label-free immunosensing.

An optical fiber Fabry–Perot interferometer (FPI) based on hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) for microorganism growth detection is proposed and demonstrated. The FPI is formed by splicing both ends of a short section of HCPCF to SMFs and cleaving the SMF pigtail to a proper length. By measuring the fringe contrast of interference pattern, the refractive index (RI) changes of analyte during microorganism growth can be obtained. RI response of the sensor was investigated theoretically and experimentally. It shows linear response with sensitivity of −136 dB/RIU and good repeatability. Temperature response was also tested and the result confirms the low temperature cross-sensitivity of the sensor. Detection of yeast growth in liquid medium by the FPI sensor was conducted and the result shows the characteristic of typical yeast growth curve. With its advantages of high RI sensitivity, low temperature cross-sensitivity, capability for real-time measurement and so on, this FPI sensor has great potential in biosensing.

An optical fibre Fabry–Perot interferometer (FPI) sensor for relative humidity (RH) measurement is proposed. The FPI is formed by splicing a short section of hollow-core photonic crystal fibre(HCPCF) to single mode fibre and covering a chitosan film at the end of HCPCF. The refractive index of chitosan and film thickness will change with ambient RH, leading to the change in the reflected interference spectrum of FPI. RH response of the FPI sensor is analysed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. It shows nonlinear response to RH values from 35 to 95%RH. The interference fringe shifts to shorter wavelength as RH increases with a maximum sensitivity of 0.28 nm/%RH at high RH level. And the fringe contrast also decreases as RH increases with an available maximum sensitivity of 0.5 dB/%RH. The sensor shows good stability and fast response time less than 1 min. With its advantages of compact structure, good performance, simple and safe fabrication, the proposed optical fibre FPI sensor has gre...