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Measurement
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement
Review
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 31 January 2013
Received in revised form 19 July 2013
Accepted 23 July 2013
Available online 31 July 2013
Keywords:
Optical bre sensor
Humidity
Moisture
a b s t r a c t
Humidity and moisture sensing is becoming increasingly important in industry and
through a wide spectrum of applications and a review of research activity in the eld across
a range of technologies was presented previously by some of the authors. Recognizing the
major developments in the last few years, especially in the eld of bre optic humidity and
moisture sensing, this paper aims to extend that approach to review and categorize recent
progress in the optical bre eld for the measurement of humidity and moisture and examine, as a result, the breadth of applications that now are being discussed.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Humidity and moisture definitions and terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.
Humidity/moisture measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.
Calibration of humidity/moisture for sensing applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Applications of humidity/moisture measurement in industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.
Food process and storage applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3.
Medical applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.
Ecological applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.
Agricultural applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.6.
Mineral processing applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.7.
Fuel applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.8.
Aerospace applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.9.
Applications underpinning human comfort. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fibre-optic techniques for humidity detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.
Fibre grating sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.1.
Fibre Bragg gratings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.2.
Long period gratings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2.
Evanescent wave sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.
Interferometric sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4.
Hybrid sensors (grating + interferometric). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.5.
Absorbance sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4053
4053
4054
4054
4055
4055
4056
4056
4056
4057
4057
4057
4057
4058
4058
4059
4059
4063
4064
4065
4067
4070
5.
4053
Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4070
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4071
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4071
1. Introduction
The rst moisture measurement scheme can be traced
as far as 179 BC when the Chinese made a humidity measurement system using a balance type approach: a hanging piece of wool, tied together on one end of a large pair
of scales where the weight of the wool would increase
when air becomes more humid and decrease when the
air tends to dry [1]. Many centuries later, in 1550, the device was improved by substituting a sponge for the wool
and various versions of the hygrometer, as it was known,
were developed subsequently, with the substitution of paper, hair, nylon, and acetate. During the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, there were several opinions about
how water dissolves in air and by 1790, an important principle was established aqueous vapours have the properties of gases. It was also established that a relationship
exists between humidity and temperature [2]. In 1803,
L.W. Gilbert [1] claimed The degree of humidity depends
on the ratio of the vapour actually present to that which is
possible. Since then, the growth of both electronic and
optical bre elds has enabled the establishment of different types of humidity sensors and measurement techniques. Today, the measurement of moisture and
Relative Humidity (RH) is an important factor in various
industries such as food process and storage [37], agriculture [811], pharmaceutical [1213], biomedical [1418],
chemical [1921], SHM [2225], ecological [26,27], atmospheric weather conditions monitoring [2830] and various others [3136].
A previous paper by Yeo et al. [37], reviewed the broad
eld of mechanical, electrical/electronic and optical brebased RH sensors and since then the eld of optical and
optical bre-based sensor methods has seen major progress and a number of new approaches and applications
have come to light. This paper aims to build on that work,
having a focus, however, only in the optical eld and to refer the interested reader to that previous paper for details
of mechanical and electrical/electronic sensors, a eld
which has been relatively static since that paper was published. Several interesting examples of applications where
humidity and moisture sensors are of signicant importance are presented below, ranging from food storage
applications to seeking to nd evidence of life on Mars,
as well as the new technological developments which have
permitted these.
This review is structured as follows. Following the general Introduction and denitions, the paper reviews the
measurement of humidity/moisture and the calibration of
humidity/moisture for sensing applications and, further,
examines methods using bre-optic techniques for humidity detection. This will include bre grating sensors (both
Fibre Bragg Gratings (FBGs) and Long Period Gratings
(LPGs)) and also look at a range of approaches: evanescent
RH
Pw
100%
Pws
4054
Fig. 2. Some conventional hygrometers that are currently in use in industry [19].
4055
Lithium
chloride
Potassium
acetate
Magnesium
chloride
Potassium
carbonate
Magnesium
nitrate
Sodium
bromide
Sodium
chloride
Strontium
chloride
Potassium
chloride
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.2
11.2
11.1
11.0
11.0
10.9
10.8
10.6
10.5
23.7
23.4
23.1
22.5
21.6
33.5
33.3
33.1
32.8
32.4
32.1
31.6
31.1
30.5
29.9
29.3
28.5
27.8
26.9
26.1
43.1
43.2
43.2
43.2
43.2
57.4
55.9
54.4
52.9
51.4
49.9
48.4
46.9
45.4
62.2
60.7
59.1
57.6
56.0
54.6
53.2
52.0
50.9
50.2
49.7
49.5
49.7
50.3
51.4
75.66
74.13
72.52
70.85
69.12
75.7
75.6
75.5
75.3
75.1
74.9
74.7
74.5
74.4
74.4
74.5
74.7
75.1
75.6
76.3
86.8
85.9
85.1
84.3
83.6
83.0
82.3
81.7
81.2
80.7
80.3
79.9
79.5
79.2
78.9
that can be congured to control both the RH and the temperature and provide maximum exibility as a result.
3. Applications of humidity/moisture measurement in
industry
Before considering the range of technologies by which
Relative Humidity (RH) and moisture levels can be made,
using advanced bre optic techniques, it is important to
consider the wide range of applications where such measurement is important. Below, several applications are
considered showing the breadth of industries where such
measurements are important, the need for clarity on issues
such as compatibility with use in extreme environments or
on human subjects and indeed the importance on making
such measurements in aerospace applications such as in
measurements on the Martian atmosphere. All this shows
the tremendous breadth that must be reected effectively
in the system design, to achieve the required degree of ruggedness or biocompatibility, for example, and thus which
underpins the most effective selection of techniques for a
particular measurement in an individual circumstance.
3.1. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications
One of the most widely used areas where RH and moisture sensors nd application is for SHM purposes. Over the
past few decades, the deterioration of civil infrastructure,
such as buildings, bridges and roadways have demonstrated the need for high-performance sensing systems
that can be used effectively to monitor changes in structures, often occurring over many years. This has led to a rapid growth in interest in SHM systems, which has the
potential to allow for real time monitoring and preventative maintenance within civil infrastructure.
Steel reinforcement bars (rebars) embedded in concrete are normally inherently protected against corrosion
by passivation of the steel surface due to the high alkalinity
of the concrete. With the rebars embedded into the concrete, this highly alkaline environment creates a very thin
but dense passivating oxide layer on the surface of the
4056
structure has a signicant inuence on the rate of carbonation and corrosion, for example, the rate of carbonation in
concrete is observed to be the fastest between 60% and
80%RH and the rate of corrosion in reinforced concrete
with different concentration of chloride ions is inuenced
by the internal RH level [42]. The corrosion in the reinforced steel bars affects the strength of the concrete structure in the long term. Thus, early detection of moisture (as
an important means by which chloride ions are delivered
into the structure) can save the reinforced concrete structure from severe damage resulting from a loss of structural
integrity and would allow appropriate action to be taken in
advance of major damage being caused and thus costs
saved.
3.2. Food process and storage applications
The loss of moisture due to transportation and storage
often limits the shelf life of fruit and vegetables. Fruits such
as bell peppers (capsicums), for example, are mostly placed
in cardboard boxes that are stored at a RH below 90% [3].
This results mainly in precocious desiccation of the peel,
shown as supercial shrivelling. Other products that dry
out too much during storage include pears, currants, and
avocado. Depending on the species and the storage conditions, the environment can also be too humid. Incidence of
fungal diseases, such as Botrytis rot is common at such high
RH [44]. Therefore it is of interest to measure the moisture
content or the RH of these products during transportation
and storage. In considering food storage potential, the
measurement of RH is more important than the moisture
content, as it measures the availability of water to microorganisms and hence gives an indication of the biological
activity, or potential activity, of the product as moulds will
develop rapidly during storage above 75%RH [4]. The density, porosity and expansion of extruded food products are
found to be dependent on feed moisture content, residence
time and temperature, and water is an essential reaction
partner in gelatinization and plays one of the major roles
in controlling extrudate expansion ratio [5]. For example,
the degree of expansion of high moisture imitation cheese
during microwaving was shown to increase with increasing pre-expansion storage time and this phenomenon
was related to an increase in water mobility in the unheated cheese during storage prior to microwaving [6]. It
is therefore necessary to have a measurement of the moisture/RH content of the food processing and storing
environment.
3.3. Medical applications
The monitoring of breathing is important during certain
imaging and surgical procedures where the patient needs
to be sedated or anesthetized [45]. Breathing airow monitoring has been widely applied to predict and detect respiratory disorders and failures, such as hypopnoea and
apnoea, which may eventually develop into a life-threatening condition [14]. Also, some serious illnesses can be diagnosed by detecting alterations in breathing rates or
abnormal respiratory rate [45]. Monitoring of breathing is
also important to study the progression of a diagnosed
Another similar area of interest for humidity monitoring is obtaining information relating to the fracture toughness of geo-materials which is critical to the understanding
of tensile fracturing, and in particular in geological and
rock engineering projects that are subjected to elevated
moisture levels and recently Nara et al. [27] conducted a
comprehensive set of fracture toughness tests on a suite
of key rock types in air under different RH at constant temperature in order to investigate the inuence of RH on fracture toughness. They found that the value of fracture
toughness decreases with increasing RH. In addition, it
was discovered that the decrease in fracture toughness
was more signicant when a particular type of clay was included in rock which expands in the presence of water and
therefore crack-growth resistance decreases at high RH
levels. It was concluded that crack growth in rock is affected by humidity, and that clay content is an important
contributing factor to changes in fracture toughness and
subcritical stress intensity factor. Therefore sensing
schemes that could provide information on the RH variations within such environments would convey the nature
and fracture toughness of the geo-material.
3.5. Agricultural applications
The study of root distribution and its ability in recovering water has also been a subject of considerable interest in
agriculture and ecology as it allows a better interpretation
of the behaviour of different crops under sub-optimal environments which would help improve the quality of modelling root water uptake in hydrological and land use change
models [8]. One interesting investigation was conducted
by Mackay et al. [49] into the effect of soil moisture on corn
root growth and it was found that, as soil moisture was increased, the total plant weight increased by 1343% and
the corn root length increased from 41% to 52% in 28 days.
As a consequence raising soil moisture content further, in
contrast, decreased the total plant weight by an average
of 13% and root length by an average of 16% in 21 days.
Therefore soil moisture content sensors are useful tools
for farmers and agricultural studies to improve the quality
of products, while saving farmers time to achieve optimum conditions for satisfactory corn growth.
3.6. Mineral processing applications
Another area that can derive enormous benet from soil
moisture content measurement is mineral processing
plants. The manual gravimetric drying moisture determination methods currently employed by most mineral processing plants fail to provide timely and accurate
information required for automatic control [50]. The task
of moisture determination is still done by the classical
technique of loss in weight utilizing uncontrolled procedures. Generally, it is acceptable to have ore concentrate
moisture content vary within a range of 79%, but controlling the moisture content below 8% is a difcult task with a
manually controlled system. On many occasions, delays in
achieving reliable feedback of the moisture content using
manual techniques, i.e. a delay between the humidity
variation and its measurement, results in a delay in the
4057
4058
4059
sensitivity of the FBG is employed as the underlying sensing mechanism where a polymer which expands in volume
due to a humidity change will apply a strain on the grating,
thus changing the resonance wavelength in a known and
reproducible way that can be calibrated against the humidity change causing it. As the sensor relies on the secondary
strain effect induced on the bre through the swelling of
the polymer coating, the following adapted expressions
are used to relate the shift in the Bragg wavelength to
the results of RH and temperature-related strains which
are induced on the bre, as well as the inuence of the
thermo-optic effect [80].
DkB
1 Pe eRH 1 P e eT n DT
Dk
where eRH and eT represent strain induced on the bre as a
result of polymer swelling due to moisture expansion and
thermal expansion of the materials (where x denotes RH or
T) which is given below.
ex
Ap Ep
apx afx Dx
Ap Ep Af Ef
and, in addition, A is the cross-sectional area of the material, E is Youngs modulus of the material, a the coefcient
of moisture expansion (CME) or the coefcient of thermal
expansion (CTE) and subscripts p and f represent the effect
on both polymer and bre, respectively.
One example of the utilization of the strain effect to
realize an effective RH sensor is the work by Berruti et al.
[81] who conducted a feasibility analysis on the development of a FBG-based humidity sensor that would withstand high energy ionizing radiation, in a series of
experiments conducted at the European Organization for
Nuclear Research (CERN). Polyimide (PI)-coated FBGs were
selected as a possible candidate for the primary sensor due
to the stringent requirements of the environment in light
of radiation hardness compliance and low temperature
operation. In this approach, two FBGs were coated with
layers of 22.5 lm and 9 lm of PI (specically Pyralin
PI 2525) designated as sensors 1 (S1) and 2 (S2) respectively. The sensors were analyzed in terms of their operation over the RH range 075% for three different
temperatures relevant to the operation, these being
15 C, 0 C and 20 C, both pre and post the ionization
radiation exposure. The pre- and post-test results on the
RH measurements carried out are shown in Fig. 6. It was
concluded that the PI coated FBG-based sensors were able
to perform RH measurements with high resolution in the
temperature range 15 to 20 C as well as in the presence
of ionizing radiation, at levels of up to 10 kGy and therefore
this work has demonstrated their potential as a robust and
valid alternative to currently used polymer-based electronic hygrometers in high energy applications the latter
suffering from the disadvantage of demonstrating no radiation hardness capability toward the ionizing irradiation
used. It is important to note the different sensitivities of
the two sensors evaluated and as can be seen from Fig. 6,
the sensitivity of the FBG with the thicker coating (S1)
has demonstrated a higher sensitivity than that with the
thinner coating. This is due to a higher level of strain being
experienced by the underlying FBG from the effect on the
4060
Table 2
Humidity/moisture optical bre-based sensor schemes proposed and discussed in the literature over the period 20082013.
Ref.
Year Authors
Sensing method
Sensing material
Range
(%RH)
Sensitivity and
response time
595
3090
Silica/di-ureasil
No coating (PMMA
polymer cladding)
PI
PI
3080
2074
7498
22-97
22.2 pm/%RH
33.6 pm/%RH
7 min
2.1 pm/%RH
2 pm/%RH
2.52 dB m/%RH
14.9 dB m/%RH
<2 s
4.5 pm/%RH
25 min
PI
075
Wavelength measurement of a LPG and a FBG congured in series SiO2 nano-sphere lm 2050
(FBG for temperature calibration)
5080
5595
5077
7795
0.0007%/pm
0.00022%/
103 dB m
63.33 pm/%RH
451.78 pm/%RH
<1 s
1.36 nm/%RH
-0.23 nm/%RH
0.33 nm/%RH
<10 s
5.68 nm/%RH (for
7597%RH)
<1 min
PVA
3397
Hydrogel
4090
[123] 2013 Urrutia et al. Absorbance measurement a PCF MMF where cladding is chemically
removed
[124] 2012 Liu et al.
Transmission loss measurement in straight hydrothermally thinned
silica bre
PAA electrospun
nanowires
ZnO nanorods grown
on bre
3095
0.196 dB/%RH
10 s1 min
<0.5 s
1095
0.014 RH1
TiO2
2495
3095
27.1 mV/%RH
<0.5 s
1.994 lW/%RH
8590
2 s
High sensitivity
[94]
PEO
PVA
Silica/methylene blue
Poly-glutamic acid/
poly-lysine
ZnO
<1 s
0.18 nm/%RH
5090
[132] 2008 Vijayan et al. Measurement of optical power loss of a U-bend cladding stripped Co/Polyiniline
POF
2034
3580
8092
Gelatin
994
0.3 RH1
30 s
0.749 mV/%RH
2.002 mV/%RH
3.406 mV/%RH
8s
<0.5 s
4061
PVA
2080
Chitosan
2095
0.98 nm/%RH
<6 s
81 pm/%RH
2095
0.13 nm/%RH
90
0.60 nm/%RH
(No coating)
1798
0.5 s
8.8 pm/%RH
Tin dioxide
25
<0.5 s
6.9 103%1
Agarose
540
5 103%1
2060
0.026 dB/%RH
6090
PI
2080
PVA
2085
2090
Hydrogel
0.163 dB/%RH
<1 s
0.10 nm/%RH
2s
60100 9.9 103/%RH
Absorption measurements
[140] 2012 Noor et al.
Absorption power measurement of a hollow core photonic bandgap lter
(No coating)
090
Au-NP/boehmite
[142] 2011 Sanchez et al. Wavelength measurement using LMR for two different coating
materials
ITO
2080
78118 s
<20 s
0.283 nm/%RH
In2O3
PVA/SiO2/CoCl2
2565
0.935 nm/%RH
Xerogel
ITO
SiO2 nano-particles
3.02 mV/%RH
<2 min
2.7%RH/nm
8 102 nm1%1
10 s2 min
2080 1.08 nm/%RH
<1 s
thicker layer and the larger material volume and this result
is conrmed by research from other groups who also utilized PI coated FBGs for RH measurement [82] (although
usually not under nuclear irradiation). There is, however,
usually a penalty with the response time of the sensor,
although this may not be a consideration in some applications [82].
4062
Fig. 6. Bragg wavelength shift vs. relative humidity before and after the irradiation process for sensor (a) S1 and (b) S2 at the three considered temperature
[81].
4063
Fig. 7. (a) Schematic diagram of the sensor design, (b) picture of the packaged sensor probe showing a coated grating as a relative humidity sensor and a
bare grating as a temperature sensor and (c) changes in RH at 30 mm depth of stone with drying of the stone block [23].
Dkres;0i
@kres;0i
@kres;0i
DRIoverlay
Dthoverlay
@RIoverlay
@thoverlay
@kres;0i
DRIsur
@RIsur
4064
Fig. 9. Spectral responses to water ingress for DLC-nanocoated LPG (a) S1 and (b) S2 [87].
Fig. 11. Taper humidity sensor structure with the ESA overlay [93].
Fig. 12. Relative humidity step response of tapered ber sensor vs.
commercial capacitive RH sensor [93].
4065
Fig. 13. Experimental setup for studying the humidity response of the PEO coated bre bend and the Poly(ethylene oxide) coated bre bend [53].
Fig. 15. Time response of the Agarose coated bre-bend sensor obtained
by applying a step change of humidity [95].
Reference
Optical
fibre
3-dB
coupler
Sensing arm
3-dB
coupler
(a)
Mirror
Optical
fibre
3-dB
coupler
(b)
Mirror
(b)
Input
Output
3-dB coupler
PC
Sensing fibre
(c)
Fig. 16. Schematic of optical bre-based (a) MachZehnder, (b) Michelson and (c) Sagnac interferometer congurations.
4066
Fig. 17. RH response of the oxidized Chitosan with etched PM ber and 1% Chitosan with etched polarization maintaining (PM) ber [102].
Fig. 18. Schematic diagram of the Chitosan-coated FPI RH sensor and the wavelength shift of the sensor upon exposure to environment of varying relative
humidity [103].
4067
Fig. 19. (a) Schematic conguration of the ber-optic RH sensor and (b) the dynamic response of the fabricated RH sensor to the change in humidity [104].
with a modied Chitosan sensing lm on the sensors performance. The results obtained are shown in Fig. 17(b) and
as can be seen, the chemically modied Chitosan coating
combined with the etching has resulted in a good sensor
performance. The optimized sensor was reported to exhibit
a sensitivity of 81 pm/%RH for a humidity change over the
range from 20% to 95%.
Another interesting interferometric RH sensor proposed
by Chen et al. [103] involves splicing a section of hollowcore bre to a SMF and to coat the tip of the hollow core
bre with Chitosan, thereby creating a FabryPerot Interferometer (FPI) sensor, as can be seen from the diagram
shown in Fig. 18(a). The sensing mechanism responds to
the swelling effect of Chitosan which then induces an optical path modulation when the external RH is changed
this can be monitored, as can be seen from Fig. 18(b).
The sensor exhibits a sensitivity of 0.13 nm/%RH for RH
ranging from 20% to 95% with a fast response time of
380 ms.
to temperature. Therefore in most cases where hybrid sensors are considered, the involvement of the grating is for
the purpose of eliminating the temperature-induced measurement error from the actual RH/moisture sensing results. One such example is the work of Gu et al. [104]
who presented a RH sensor based on a thin-core bre
modal interferometer with a FBG between, where poly
(N-ethyl-4-vinylpyridinium chloride) (P4VPHCl) and poly
(vinylsulfonic acid, a sodium salt) (PVS) are deposited on
the surface of the sensor for RH sensing. A schematic of
the sensor can be seen Fig. 19(a). The FBG is used to compensate temperature effects on the overall sensor performance. The sensor described has been reported to be
able to detect RH changes with a resolution of 0.78%, operating over a large RH range at different temperatures. A linear, fast and reversible response has been experimentally
demonstrated, as can be seen in Fig. 19(b).
Another benet of the hybrid design for interferometric-grating sensing is to improve the measuring technique,
i.e. to create a probe, and thus to achieve a better resolution in the detection system. A typical conguration
involving a single grating-based LPG sensor system frequently has the disadvantage of the probe being used in
transmission mode. Further, the broad bandwidth of the
attenuation bands formed by the propagation mode coupling between the core and the cladding modes constitutes
a difculty when the device is used as a conventional sensor probe. To overcome these limitations, a Michelson
core
Intensity (dBm)
(a)
cladding
Mirror
(nm)
LPG
Intensity (dBm)
(b)
Mirror
(nm)
Fig. 20. Light propagation in the SILPG (a) forward propagation path and (b) propagation path of the reection [107].
4068
(a)
(b)
Fig. 21. (a) Results for the PI coated LPG RH sensor probe and (b) comparison between the performance of PI and PVA coated LPG based RH sensor probes
[108].
Fig. 22. The system diagram of the humidity sensor and the detail structure of the ber tip coated with sensitive thin-lm. The test result of different
amount of CoClz in PYA/SiOz composite material [109].
interferometer-type sensor conguration has been proposed by Lam et al [41] using a LPG grating pair formed
by coating a mirror at the distal end of the LPG, i.e. termed
as Self interfering LPG (SILPG), as can be seen from Fig. 20,
in order to create a refractometer. This sensor conguration is more convenient to use and is able to overcome
the limitations of the single LPG sensor due to the shifts
in the attenuation bands being more easily detectable.
4069
Fig. 23. Experimental set-up for the absorption-based humidity sensing application reported by Estella et al. [110].
Table 3
Humidity/moisture application-specic sensors, over the period 20032013.
Ref.
Year
Authors
Biomedical measurements
[15]
2012 Favero
et al.
[17]
2011 Akita et al.
[16]
2008
[14]
2007
Morisawa
et al.
Kang et al.
Sensor application
Sensing mechanism
Breathing sensor
Reection spectra measurement of SMF in-line with a PCF in both open and
closed end congurations
Light intensity variation of hetero-core bre conguration coated with a
hydroscopic polymer
Light intensity measurement of moisture sensitive polymer coated de-clad multimode POF
Measurement of reectance of polymer thin lm coated the end-tip of bre in an
optical cavity interferometric conguration
Breathing sensor
Recognition of devoiced vowels
Breathing air-ow monitor
Climate/agricultural monitoring
[147] 2011 Bilro et al.
Turbidity sensor
[148]
2008
[149]
2008
[9]
2006
Kuang
et al.
Clevers
et al.
Eitel et al.
[10]
2003
Sims et al.
Flood monitoring
Variation in the transmitted and scattered light collected via two bres that are
made to be in and out-of-phase to each other
Loss in intensity of a U-bend MMF due to surrounding refractive index change
Reection spectrum variation due to the water absorption by the target analyte.
Reection spectrum variation due to the water absorption by the target analyte
2012
Sun et al.
[150]
2012
[151]
2006
Mathew
et al.
Yeo et al.
2009
Puckett
et al.
Reection spectrum variation in the NIR region due to the water absorption by
the target
Measurement of ring-down times of etched SMF embedded in concrete in a bre
ring conguration due to change in the refractive index of the surrounding
Bragg wavelength monitoring of PI coated FBG in SMF
4070
Table 3 (continued)
Ref.
Year
Authors
Sensor application
Sensing mechanism
[155]
2009
[156]
2008
Zhang
et al.
Rodreguez
et al
Wavelength shift measurement of FBG written into a POF where the cladding is
made of PMMA
Intensity variation measurement of a U-bend PVA coated plastic MMF caused by
surrounding refractive index change.
Other applications
[31]
2012 Cho et al.
[32]
2011
Hsu et al.
[33]
2008
Baldini
et al.
Transmission loss caused by the bending of SMF attached to acrylate polymer that
swells with water
Reection light measurement using OTDR technique incorporating the change in
refractive index (from air to water) when inltrated
1. Reection spectra measurement of cladding removed U-bend MMF
2. Reection spectra measurement of open-end MMF
design and tune a measuring cell working under volumetric static conditions and to evaluate the sensitivity, reversibility and reproducibility of the sensor. The sensing
mechanism was based on the change in reected optical
power when water molecules were adsorbed on the silica
xerogel lm. The experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 23
and comprised an optical system, a measuring cell, a vacuum and dosication system, and controllers for temperature and pressure. Light at port 4 is guided to the index
matching liquid (toluene), where no reection occurs (to
avoid interference) while the signal in port 2 reaches the
xerogel lm interface. Exposure of the xerogel lm to
water vapour inside the measuring cell produces variations
in the reected signal, which is reected back to the coupler and measured at the spectrometer (port 3).
5. Overview
The key feature of a review of this type has been to
present the key information required to the sensor user
which will allow the optimum choice of sensor to be made
for any particular application and for research to be stimulated to enable the development of new sensors to tackle
unmet and likely challenging needs. Given the breadth of
applications and bre optic-based technologies discussed
above, it is useful to tabulate the key features of these sensors sensing method, sensing material, range, sensitivity
and response time (where known), as well as the date of
rst publication and the group responsible for the development as well as the source of further information (the
original reference in the literature) to help in that search.
To aim to do that, two tables are presented below: Table 2
presents an overview of the mentioned sensor schemes
and various other related sensor schemes available in the
literature. Table 2 particularly focus on work done in the
period 20082013 the last ve years and thus aim both
to be highly topical and to build on the work tabulated in
our previous review [37] which dealt with the state-ofthe-art prior to 2008, and to which the interested reader
is referred for prior research in the eld. Table 3 provides
a few examples where optical bre-based RH sensors have
been used for specic target applications.
Thus, in summary, this review has shown how well bre optic sensing technology has provided, and indeed continues to provide, an alternative and highly effective
approach to moisture and humidity sensing as it offers real
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[12]
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[30]
[31]
[32]
[33]
4071
4072
4073
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