Fiber optofluidic Coriolis flowmeter based on a dual-antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide

Abstract

A microfiber optofluidic flowmeter based on the Coriolis principle and a dual-antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A hollow hole in a hollow-core fiber is fabricated as an optofluidic channel to move the liquid sample, which forms a dual-ARROW in the hollow-core fiber. Two sides of the hollow-core fiber are used as two adjacent Fabry–Perot resonators based on the refractive index modulation of a CO2 laser, which is used to investigate the vibration signals of the two resonators. The flow rate can be measured based on the Coriolis force by calculating the phase difference between the two ARROWs. The experimental results show that a flow rate sensitivity of 8.04 deg/(µl/s) can be achieved for ethanol solution. The proposed micro Coriolis fiber optic flowmeter can be used in various fields, such as food production, medicine, bioanalysis, etc.