Refractive index sensor based on the natural roughness of a directly fabricated D-shape fiber for biological and environmental monitoring purposes
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: We present a novel fiber optics sensor approach using an intentionally designed silica fiber that requires no additional processing after fabrication. The fiber, drawn from a D-shaped preform, maintains a D-shape cross-section along its entire length, ensuring high uniformity of the geometrical parameters such as core diameter and cladding thickness at the flattened surface. The primary advantage of our approach is its unique ability to sense analytes at arbitrary distances from the fiber end and at any interaction length using the evanescent wave effect. We demonstrate the sensing performance by exposing a short fiber section (4 cm) to a liquid analyte in its pure form without requiring any interlayer to enhance the sensing signal. Importantly, the output signal remains invariant in a water medium, while exposure to an alcoholic medium significantly increases the transmission. We further analyze the refractive index sensitivity of the technique by varying the water-isopropyl alcohol mixture ratio at 1030 nm wavelength in a few-mode propagation regime. The results, interpreted in terms of the elimination of Rayleigh scattering losses of the higher-order modes by index matching between the fiber and the sensing medium, underscore the potential of our approach for water contamination sensing in both biological and environmental applications with distributed sensing capability, thereby addressing a critical need in the field.
Source: Optical Fiber Technology
Language: English
Topic: Advanced Fiber Optic Sensors
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,240
OpenAlex ID: W4404231513