Fabry-P\'erot fiber cavity refractive index sensing via linewidth tracking in the broken PT-symmetric region

Abstract

Parity-time (PT) symmetric optical sensors operating around exceptional points have recently gained much attraction, offering an unparalleled high sensitivity in measuring small perturbations. In the past, most of the PT-symmetric sensors have been based on tracking the mode-splitting that arises due to a perturbation-induced change in coupling strength between two subcavities of the PT-symmetric system. We design a linear fiber Fabry-P\'erot and coupled cavities sensor, tailored to operate in the broken PT-symmetric region. We explore a new sensing metric-that is, the mode's linewidth change as a function of perturbation-induced changes in the loss within one of the subcavities of the PT-symmetric system. The coupling strength between the two subcavities remains unchanged in our proposed sensor. Supported by a mathematical formulation, we find that the full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) of the cavity resonances exhibits a square root dependence on the refractive index (RI) change in one of the subcavities. The proposed fiber cavity refractive index sensor has a maximum sensitivity of $2.26\times10^7$ GHz/RIU and a lowest detection limit of $10^{-9}$ RIU, widely outperforming the comparable cavity sensors subject to the same refractive index change, gain, and loss settings.