Mie Scattering-Enhanced Fiber-Optic Refractometer

Author

Liu, Guigen ; Wu, Yihui ; Li, Kaiwei ; Hao, Peng ; Zhang, Ping ; Xuan, Ming

Author_Institution

State Key Lab. of Appl. Opt., Changchun Inst. of Opt., Fine Mech. & Phys., Changchun, China

Volume

24

Issue

8

fYear

2012

fDate

4/15/2012 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

658

Lastpage

660

Abstract

A kind of biconically-tapered optical fiber (BTOF) modified by silica nanospheres is proposed to implement detection of refractive index (RI), especially low RI, with strong nonlinearity and enhanced sensitivity; this idea arose from an interesting experiment with a BTOF whose surface was very rough. The mechanisms of the nonlinear characters are investigated and explained by the coupling effects of Mie scattering and multimode propagation, and this phenomenon is repeated in several experiments with different fibers. Measured sensitivity magnification of more than 100 from a 2.8-μ.m-thick and 14-mm-long BTOF after modification by 400-nm silica nanospheres is shown in this letter.

Keywords

Mie scattering; fibre optic sensors; nanophotonics; refractive index measurement; refractometers; silicon compounds; Mie scattering; SiO₂; biconically tapered optical fiber; fiber optic refractometer; multimode propagation; nanospheres; nonlinearity; refractive index detection; sensitivity; size 14 mm; size 400 nm to 14 mm; Optical fiber sensors; Optical fiber theory; Refractive index; Scattering; Sensitivity; Silicon compounds; Mie scattering; multimode propagation; refractometer; tapered optical fiber;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2012.2185786

Filename

6138900