We proposed and experimentally demonstrated a fast and simple technique to measure refractive index of liquids. A commercial Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) was implemented for interrogating sensor tips from a remote location. The system uses Fresnel reflected light from standard single mode fiber tips as sensing points without requiring any chemical coating, delicate fiber components, and/or sophisticated architecture at the sensor head. We reported new measurements of refractive indices of common solvents and solutions at both 1550 nm and 1625 nm. The precision of the proposed measurement system was found to be in the order of 10-4. The experimental results have been validated by the way of theoretical calculations.

Refractive index (RI) is one of the optical parameters that is of paramount interest in characterizing liquid solutions and solvents. Increased public awareness and legal requirements for quality standards in different sectors have created a need for reliable, fast, automated, remote and/or portable refractive index sensors with multi-measurement capability. The fiber-based RI sensors are very good candidates in providing attractive solutions in such application areas and have been attracting a growing interest by the scientific community. In this work, a fiber optic refractive index sensor has been investigated. It uses a long-period fiber grating (LPFG) and an Optical Spectrum Analyzer (OSA), as sensor head and interrogator unit, respectively. New measurements of refractive indices of common solvents and solutions at the low-loss telecom wavelength band have been successfully demonstrated by using the proposed sensor. The reported measurement results are in excellent agreement with our simulation results and reference measurements realized by conventional measurement techniques.