High-Sensitivity Fabry-Pérot Temperature Sensor Based on Liquid Crystal Doped With Nanoparticles

The response of a Fabry-Pérot interferometer filled with a nematic liquid crystal doped with silver nanoparticles is theoretically studied as a temperature sensor. It has been observed that the high dependence of the extraordinary refractive index of a liquid crystal along with the influence of the plasmonic resonances of nanoparticles produce useful phenomena for temperature sensing. Accordingly, we theoretically demonstrated the optical response of this device as a function of the temperature and the nanoparticles radius. The application of different technologies as optical sources was investigated through a simulation program. The latter enabled us to estimate the sensitivity and predict interesting parameters of the device, such as optimum wavelength ranges, for the optical sources or optimum sizes of the nanoparticles. Maximum sensitivities of 24·10^-2 dB/°C are obtained.