Opening up optical fibres.

A unique optical fibre design is presented in this work: a laterally accessible microstructured optical fibre, in which one of the cladding holes is open to the surrounding environment and the waveguide core exposed over long lengths of fibre. Such a fibre offers the opportunity of real-time chemical sensing and biosensing not previously possible with conventional microstructured optical fibres, as well as the ability to functionalize the core of the fibre without interference from the cladding. The fabrication of such a fibre using PMMA is presented, as well as experimental results demonstrating the use of the fibre as a evanescent wave absorption spectroscopy pH sensor using the indicator Bromothymol Blue.

[1]  Michael Scalora,et al.  Photonic-crystal fiber as a multifunctional optical sensor and sample collector. , 2005, Optics express.

[2]  W. Jin,et al.  Design and modeling of a photonic crystal fiber gas sensor. , 2003, Applied optics.

[3]  David J. Richardson,et al.  Chalcogenide holey fibres , 2000 .

[4]  D. M. Atkin,et al.  All-silica single-mode optical fiber with photonic crystal cladding. , 1996, Optics letters.

[5]  Wei Jin,et al.  Evanescent-wave gas sensing using microstructure fiber , 2002 .

[6]  J D Andrade,et al.  Remote spectroscopic sensing of chemical adsorption using a single multimode optical fiber. , 1984, Applied optics.

[7]  Maryanne C. J. Large,et al.  Fabrication of microstructured polymer optical fibres , 2004 .

[8]  David J. Richardson,et al.  Sensing with microstructured optical fibres , 2001 .

[9]  E. M. dos Santos,et al.  Lateral access to the holes of photonic crystal fibers - selective filling and sensing applications. , 2006, Optics express.

[10]  George Stewart,et al.  Evanescent wave methane detection using optical fibres , 1992 .

[11]  Jens Kobelke,et al.  Toward photonic crystal fiber based distributed chemosensors , 2005, International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors.

[12]  P. Russell,et al.  Supercontinuum and four-wave mixing with Q-switched pulses in endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fibres. , 2004, Optics express.

[13]  P. Russell,et al.  Endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fiber. , 1997, Optics letters.

[14]  J. Jensen,et al.  Photonic crystal fiber based evanescent-wave sensor for detection of biomolecules in aqueous solutions , 2003, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2003. CLEO '03..

[15]  Simon Fleming,et al.  Microstructured polymer optical fibre. , 2001 .

[16]  J. Jensen,et al.  Selective detection of antibodies in microstructured polymer optical fibers. , 2005, Optics express.

[17]  Knight,et al.  Single-Mode Photonic Band Gap Guidance of Light in Air. , 1999, Science.

[18]  Alexander Argyros,et al.  Hollow-core microstructured polymer optical fiber. , 2006, Optics letters.