Refractive index sensing using V-shaped polymer optical fibers

Although polymer optical fiber (POF) tapers with high flexibility have been used to measure the refractive indices (RIs) of liquids, their fabrication have caused some inconvenience including the need to use external heat sources or chemicals. Here, as an alternative, we develop a simple, secure, and low-cost method of measuring RIs of liquids using V-shaped bent POFs. When the bending angle is 120° (experimentally optimized), with increasing RI, the transmitted power increases almost linearly with a dependence coefficient of approximately 210 dB/RI unit.

[1]  Yosuke Mizuno,et al.  Brillouin scattering signal in polymer optical fiber enhanced by exploiting pulsed pump with multimode-fiber-assisted coupling technique. , 2013, Optics letters.

[2]  Sacharia Albin,et al.  Transmission property and evanescent wave absorption of cladded multimode fiber tapers. , 2003, Optics express.

[3]  Alan D. Kersey,et al.  Analysis of the response of long period fiber gratings to external index of refraction , 1998 .

[4]  Zhaobing Tian,et al.  Refractive Index Sensing With Mach–Zehnder Interferometer Based on Concatenating Two Single-Mode Fiber Tapers , 2008, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[5]  Y. Koike,et al.  The future of plastic optical fiber , 2009 .

[6]  Feng Dejun,et al.  Refractive index sensor based on plastic optical fiber with tapered structure. , 2014, Applied optics.

[7]  Yosuke Mizuno,et al.  Refractive index and strain sensing using inline Mach-Zehnder interferometer comprising perfluorinated graded-index plastic optical fiber , 2014 .

[8]  Kentaro Nakamura,et al.  Experimental study of Brillouin scattering in perfluorinated polymer optical fiber at telecommunication wavelength , 2010 .

[9]  T. White,et al.  SO YOU WANT EVEN MORE FROM R&D ? , 1994 .

[10]  H. J. Kadim,et al.  Automation and dynamic characterization of light intensity with applications to tapered plastic optical fibre , 2003 .

[11]  A. Harris,et al.  Bend loss measurements on high numerical aperture single-mode fibers as a function of wavelength and bend radius , 1986 .

[12]  Yosuke Mizuno,et al.  Observation of Brillouin gain spectrum in tapered polymer optical fiber , 2014 .

[13]  Yosuke Mizuno,et al.  Observation of polymer optical fiber fuse , 2014 .

[14]  Raj Mutharasan,et al.  Effects of geometry on transmission and sensing potential of tapered fiber sensors. , 2006, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[15]  Takashi Takeo,et al.  Optical Fiber Sensor for Measuring Refractive Index , 1982 .

[16]  Kentaro Nakamura,et al.  Polymer optical fiber tapering without the use of external heat source and its application to refractive index sensing , 2015 .

[17]  Kyunghwan Oh,et al.  All fiber N × N fused tapered plastic optical fiber (POF) power splitters for photodynamic therapy applications , 2009 .