Tapered optical fibres for sensing

Citation

Martan, T., Kanka, J., Kasik, I., & Matejec, V. (2008). Tapered optical fibres for sensing. In Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering (Vol. 7138, p. 71380Z). SPIE. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.818000

Keywords

• microstructure optical fiber
• fiber taper
• evanescent-wave sensing

Brief

The article discusses using tapered solid-core microstructured optical fibers with steering-wheel air-cladding to enhance evanescent-field sensitivity for sensing applications.

Summary

This article investigates the use of tapered optical fibers to enhance the sensitivity of evanescent-field sensors.

• Researchers numerically analyzed a solid-core microstructured fiber with steering-wheel air-cladding (SW-MOF) to determine the effects of tapering the fiber on the intensity overlap between the fundamental mode and the air holes.
• They found that reducing the core size of the SW-MOF through tapering significantly increased the intensity overlap, indicating enhanced sensitivity to surrounding analytes.
• They tapered the SW-MOF using a "flame brush technique" with a propan-butan-oxygen flame, achieving good agreement between the manufactured tapers and the modeled structures.
• The researchers conclude that this method of tapering SW-MOF offers a promising approach for manufacturing highly sensitive evanescent-field sensors.

Origin: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268301416_Tapered_optical_fibres_for_sensing