A Multi-D-Shaped Optical Fiber for Refractive Index Sensing

Sensors

Chien-Hsing Chen¹  Tzu-Chein Tsao²  Jaw-Luen Tang¹ 

[1] Department of Physics, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi 621, Taiwan;Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi 621, Taiwan

关键词: multi-D-shaped fiber;    femtosecond laser;    sensor;    refractive index;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s100504794

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

A novel class of multi-D-shaped optical fiber suited for refractive index measurements is presented. The multi-D-shaped optical fiber was constructed by forming several D-sections in a multimode optical fiber at localized regions with femtosecond laser pulses. The total number of D-shaped zones fabricated could range from three to seven. Each D-shaped zone covered a sensor volume of 100 μm depth, 250 μm width, and 1 mm length. The mean roughness of the core surface obtained by the AFM images was 231.7 nm, which is relatively smooth. Results of the tensile test indicated that the fibers have sufficient mechanical strength to resist damage from further processing. The multi-D-shaped optical fiber as a high sensitive refractive-index sensor to detect changes in the surrounding refractive index was studied. The results for different concentrations of sucrose solution show that a resolution of 1.27 × 10⁻³–3.13 × 10⁻⁴ RIU is achieved for refractive indices in the range of 1.333 to 1.403, suggesting that the multi-D-shaped fibers are attractive for chemical, biological, and biochemical sensing with aqueous solutions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2010 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.