Miniature Optical fiber combined pressure- and temperature sensor for medical applications

An Optical fiber Pressure Sensor (OFPS also referred to as FOPS) is combined with an Optical fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) to create a pressure and temperature sensitive sensor in a single optical fiber. This sensor is novel in its design and fabrication and it is using quartz glass only. The novel design allows access to in-vivo biomedical pressure measurements, which have previously been impossible to undertake due to size and compatibility constraints. Therefore, it can be used in several medical applications such as bladder or lung pressure measurement. Because of the small diameter (200 um), applications within blood vessels are also possible. The sensor is ideally suited to medical applications as it has demonstrated the required high accuracy (2 mmHg) and is miniature in size. It is also possible to use the sensor in harsh medical environments e.g. within Medical Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners and in the vicinity of Linear Accelerators (LinAcs).