All-fiber seawater salinity sensor based on fiber laser intracavity loss modulation with low detection limit

An all-fiber seawater salinity sensor based on intracavity loss-modulated sensing in a fiber ring laser is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. An optical fiber multimode interferometer, which is based on single-mode-no-core-single-mode fiber structure, is cascaded with a fiber reflector and used as a reflected sensing head to enhance loss-modulated depth. It is inserted in a fiber ring laser and the intracavity loss-modulated salinity sensing is induced for the fiber laser's output intensity. The salinity sensitivity is measured to be 0.1 W/‰ with a high signal-to-noise ratio more than 49 dB and narrow full width at half maximum less than 40 pm. The temperature cross-sensitivity characteristic and stability are also analyzed. Considering the errors from cross-sensitivity, stability and resolution of the photodetector, the detection limit of the sensor system is 0.0023 ‰ (0.0002 S/m), which is comparable to the most advanced commercial electronic salinity sensor.