A fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer based on a PVA coating for humidity measurement

A fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) for humidity measurement based on a Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) film is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. This FPI is fabricated by coating a PVA film on the ending face of a Single-mode fiber (SMF) to form a Fabry-Perot cavity. A well-confined interference spectrum with a free spectra range (FSR) of 15 nm is obtained. Several saturated salt solutions are employed to obtain the different humidity environments in the inclosed containers, of which the relative humidity values range from 7% RH to 91.2% RH. The proposed FPI sensor is sensitive to the humidity change, and a sensitivity of 0.07 nm/(1%) is obtained. Therefore, the characteristics of compact size, low cost and simple fabrication identify it a good candidate for environment monitoring application.