Abstract
In this work, a curvature sensor based on a highly birefringent (Hi-Bi) photonic crystal fibre loop mirror is presented. For this purpose, a novel Hi-Bi photonic crystal fibre was designed and fabricated. Half of the microstructured region of the photonic crystal fibre was composed by holes with large diameter, while the other half contained holes with small diameter. Due to this geometry, the fibre core was shifted from the centre and high birefringence appears in the optical fibre. The Hi-Bi photonic crystal fibre loop mirror was demonstrated as a curvature sensor. The curvature was applied for three different fibre directions for the range of 0.6 - 5 metres(-1). The configuration was also characterized for temperature and longitudinal strain, showing insensitivity for these two physical parameters.

Abstract
We report on the use of a frequency-reflectometry domain technique for referencing optical intensity sensors located between two fibre Bragg gratings. The experiment combines the concept of frequency modulated continuous wave with the spectrally selective mirror proper-ties of fibre Bragg gratings to interrogate with referencing properties intensity based sensors. Multiplexing two of these sensors using this technique in a parallel topology system was also experimentally demonstrated. Due to the use of different fibre lengths (delay lines), signals from the fibre Bragg gratings located at different positions in an array are separated in the frequency-domain.

Abstract
A fibre optic Fabry-Perot sensing structure based on suspended-core fibre is presented. The interferometric structure is formed when a small length of suspended-core fibre with three or four holes is spliced to the end of a standard single mode fibre. The sensing structure is implemented firstly for strain and temperature measurement, and secondly for refractive index measurement. The interrogation of the sensing structure is obtained for the first implementation by the wavelength variation, and for the second implementation through the fringe visibility and through the analysis of the fast Fourier transform. © 2009 SPIE.

Abstract
A fiber-optic sensor for torsion measurement, based on a two-LP-mode operation in ultra high birefringent photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is described. The structure of the photonic crystal fiber presents two large asymmetric holes adjacent to the core fiber. When linearly polarized light is injected in x or in y directions, respectively, two different interferometers can be obtained. In one of these cases, as torsion is applied to the ultra Hi-Bi PCF a beat between the two interferometers is formed due to the simultaneous excitation of the two polarization states. The detection technique to read the torsion sensor is based on the analysis of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), which is an alternative and simple solution. The sensor exhibited reduced sensitivity to temperature and also to strain. © 2009 SPIE.

Abstract
In this work, the authors present an alternative Sagnac interferometer based on a suspended twin-core fibre. Using the suspended twin-core fibre, the pattern fringe is due to the different optical paths of the light in the two cores. In this case, the value of the refractive index difference between the two cores is 10(-3), which indicates an advantage of this approach, namely the possibility to use a small length of the suspended twin-core fibre. The sensing configuration was characterized for strain, temperature, curvature and torsion, respectively.

Abstract
In this work, we propose to take advantage of properties of a Bragg fibre for optical sensing. The Bragg fibre exhibits three concentric high refractive index layers embedded in pure silica and surrounding a 35 mu m diameter core. A short (0.3 m long) piece of Bragg fibre slightly multimode, is used to elaborate an intermodal interferometer, the spectral response of which exhibits a fringe pattern that depends on the operating wavelength, which can therefore be used as a sensor. The two modes considered were found to be the fundamental LP(01) and the high-order mode LP(02). The sensor has been characterized in strain and temperature and presents a sensitivity of - 1.09 pm/mu epsilon and 14.1 pm/degrees C respectively. The sensor demonstrated insensitivity to curvature thanks to well known Bragg fibre properties.