Multi-purpose sensor measures temperature, vibrations and electric fields with high spatial resolution

Glass fibres can do more than transport data. A special type of glass fibre can also be used as a high-precision multi-purpose sensor, as researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) in Erlangen have now demonstrated. The MPL researchers sent a tiny glass bead which can literally sense different physical quantities such as electric field, temperature or vibrations through the inside of this hollow-core photonic crystal fibre. The flying particle detects the quantities t...