Photonic crystal fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer with microholes ablated by a femtosecond laser for refractive index sensing

A new structure of the photonic crystal fiber（PCF）based Mach-Zednder interferometer（MZI）is fabricated and presented.The structure has microholes ablated by a femtosecond laser.The fringe visibility can be enhanced more than 10 dB compared with the interferometer without a microhole.The interferometer is characterized by sodium chloride solutions for refractive index（RI）sensing.The RI sensitivities are greatly increased by the hole fabrication since it directly changes the cladding modes of the PCF.For the interferometer sensor with two holes,the RI sensitivity is 157.74 nm/RIU,which is 5 times than that of the sensor without a microhole.Microholes ablation with a femtosecond laser on PCF can increase the sensor＇s sensitivity dramatically.Femtosecond laser has a wide application prospect in the field of performance improvement of the sensors.

Long Period Grating Imprinted on a Flat-Shaped Plastic Optical Fiber for Refractive Index Sensing

A corrugated surface long period grating(LPG)was fabricated on a flat-shaped plastic optical fiber(POF)as a refractive index(RI)sensor by a simple pressing with the heat pressure and mechanical die press print method.The light propagation characteristics of an LPG imprinted on a multi-mode POF were analyzed by the method of geometrical optics.Theoretical and experimental results showed that the structural parameters of the sensor affected the RI sensing performance,and the sensor with a thinner flat thickness,a deeper groove depth of the corrugated surface LPG,and a longer LPG exhibited better RI sensing performance.When the POF with a diameter of 1 mm was pressed with the heat pressure to a flat shape with a thickness of 600μm,an LPG with a period of 300μm,a groove depth of 200μm,and a length of 6 cm was fabricated on it,and the RI sensitivity of 1447%/RIU was obtained with a resolution of 5.494×10^(−6) RIU.In addition,the influences of the POF cladding,tilting of LPG,and bending of the sensing structure were investigated.The results demonstrated that after removing the cladding and tilting or bending the LPG,the RI sensing performance was improved.When the LPG imprinted on the flat-shaped POF was bent with a curvature radius of 6/πcm,the highest sensitivity of 6563%/RIU was achieved with a resolution of 2.487×10^(−9) RIU in the RI range of 1.3330–1.4230.The proposed sensor is a low-cost solution for RI measurement with the features of easy fabrication,high sensitivity,and intensity modulation at the visible wavelengths.

A Refractive Index Sensor Based on Four-Wave Mixing in D-Shaped Tellurite Photonic Crystal Fiber

In this study,we design a refractive index(RI)sensor using a novel cadmium telluride photonic crystal fiber(TPCF).Based on four-wave mixing(FWM),the changes in RI can be accurately detected,and RI sensing in the mid-infrared region(MIR)can be achieved by detecting wavelength shifts in the Stokes and anti-Stokes spectra caused by the changes in RI of the liquid to be measured.When the pump wavelength of FWM lies in the normal and abnormal dispersion regions of the TPCF,the RI response of the idler frequency wave and the signal wave are analyzed by numerical simulation methods.The simulation results show that the RI sensitivity of the sensor can be as high as 7692 nm/RIU with a linearity is up to 99.9%at the pump wavelength of 3380 nm.To our knowledge,the RI sensing sensitivity of the MIR is presented for the first time in this study by using FWM in the non-silicon PCF.

Modeling of Gold Circular Sub-Wavelength Apertures on a Fiber Endface for Refractive Index Sensing

A finite-difference time-domain approach was used to investigate the excitation of surface plasmons of the circular sub-wavelength apertures on an optical fiber endface. This phenomenon provided the basis of a sensitive liquid refractive index sensor. The proposed sensor is compact and has the potential to be used in biomedical applications, having a sensitivity of （373 ± 16）nm per refractive index unit （RIU） as found through the variation of a reflection minimum with the wavelength.

Plasmonic gold nanoshell induced spectral effects and refractive index sensing properties of excessively tilted fiber grating

We demonstrate a fiber refractive index（RI） sensor based on an excessively tilted fiber grating（ExTFG）immobilized by large-size plasmonic gold nanoshells（GNSs）. The GNSs are covalently linked on ExTFG surface.Experimental results demonstrate that both the intensity of the transverse magnetic（TM） and transverse electric（TE） modes of ExTFG are significantly modulated by the localized surface plasmon resonance（LSPR） of GNSs due to the wide-range absorption band. The wavelength RI sensitivities of the TM and TE modes in the low RI range of 1.333–1.379 are improved by ～25% and ～14% after GNSs immobilization, respectively, and the intensity RI sensitivities are ～599%/RIU and ～486%/RIU, respectively.

Modeling of Refractive Index Sensing Using Au Aperture Arrays on a Bragg Fiber Facet

A finite-difference-time-domain(FDTD)approach is undertaken to investigate the extraordinary optical transmission(EOT)phenomenon of Au circular aperture arrays deposited on a Bragg fiber facet for refractive index(RI)sensing.Investigation shows that the choice of effective indices and modal loss of the Bragg fiber core modes will affect the sensitivity enhancement by using a mode analysis approach.The critical parameters of Bragg fiber including the middle dielectric RI,as well as its gap between dielectric layers,which affect the EOT and RI sensitivity for the sensor,are discussed and optimized.It is demonstrated that a better sensitivity of 156±5 nm per refractive index unit(RIU)and an averaged figure of merit exceeding 3.5 RIU‒1 are achieved when RI is 1.5 and gap is 0.02μm in this structure.

Asymmetrical Fabry-Perot cavity slot micro-ring resonator and its sensing characteristics

To achieve high quality factor and high-sensitivity refractive index sensor,a slot micro-ring resonator(MRR)based on asymmetric Fabry-Perot(FP)cavity was proposed.The structure consisted of a pair of elliptical holes to form an FP cavity and a microring resonator.The two different optical modes generated by the micro-ring resonator were destructively interfered to form a Fano line shape,which improved the system sensitivity while obtaining a higher quality factor and extinction ratio.The transmission principle of the structure was analyzed by the transfer matrix method.The transmission spectrum and mode field distribution of the proposed structure were simulated by the finite difference time domain(FDTD)method,and the key structural parameters affecting the Fano line shape in the device were optimized.The simulation results show that the quality factor of the device reached 22037.1,and the extinction ratio was 23.9 dB.By analyzing the refractive index sensing characteristics,the sensitivity of the structure was 354 nm·RIU−1,and the detection limit of the sensitivity was 2×10−4 RIU.Thus,the proposed compact asymmetric FP cavity slot micro-ring resonator has obvious advantages in sensing applications owing to its excellent performance.

Novel high-quality Fano resonance based on metal-insulator-metal waveguide with L-shaped resonators

Developing a convenient method that can be routinely applied for ascertaining proportions of different vegetable oils employed in commercial blended edible oils remains a significant challenge.We address this issue by proposing a novel method for detecting volume fraction of different oils based on the fact that these oils are optically transparent and have slightly different indices of refraction at a given temperature and wavelength.Accordingly,we develop a highly sensitive sensor for measuring the index of refraction of oil blends based on Fano resonance spectra obtained using a metal-insulatormetal(MIM)waveguide structure comprising a gapped straight waveguide coupled with two L-shaped resonators.The index of refraction sensitivity and figure of merit of the structure are calculated based on modeling using the finite element method,and the waveguide structure is accordingly optimized by adjusting the different geometric parameters to achieve a high-quality Fano resonance spectrum.The optimized structure achieves an ultra-high refractive index sensitivity of 770 nm/RIU in terms of a refractive index unit(RIU)of 1.Moreover,a highly stable linear relationship is obtained between the refractive index of mixed edible oils and the resonance wavelength.Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed structure can detect slight changes in the volume fractions of the components in blended oils.

A high Q terahertz asymmetrically coupled resonator and its sensing performance

A terahertz asymmetrically coupled resonator （ACR） consisting of two different split ring resonators （SRRs） was designed. Using finite difference time domain （FDTD）, the transmission of ACR and its refractive-index- based sensing performaance were simulated and analyzed. Results show that the ACR possesses a sharp coupled transparent peak or high quality factor （Q）, its intensity and bandwidth can be easily adjusted by spacing the two SRRs. Furthermore, the resonator exhibits high sensitivity of 75 GHz/RIU and figure of merit （FOM） of 4.4, much higher than the individual SRR sensors. The ACR were fabricated by using laser-induced and chemical non-electrolytic plating with copper on polyimide substrate, the transmission of which measured by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy system is in good agreement with simulations.

Holographically fabricated, highly reflective nanoporous polymeric distributed Bragg reflectors with red, green,and blue colors [Invited]

We report holographic fabrication of nanoporous distributed Bragg reflector(DBR) films with periodic nanoscale porosity via a single-prism conuration. The nanoporous DBR films result from the phase separation in a material recipe, which consists of a polymerizable acrylate monomer and nonreactive volatile solvent. By changing the interfering angle of two laser beams, we achieve the nanoporous DBR films with highly reflective red,green, and blue colors. The reflection band of the nanoporous DBR films can be tuned by further filling different liquids into the pores inside the films, resulting in the color change accordingly. Experimental results show that such kinds of nanoporous DBR films could be potentially useful for many applications, such as color filters and refractive index sensors.