Polymer optical fiber tapers for biosensing applications

Roberto Gravina; Romeo Bernini

doi:10.1117/12.810170

20 February 2009 Polymer optical fiber tapers for biosensing applications

Roberto Gravina, Romeo Bernini

Proceedings Volume 7173, Optical Fibers and Sensors for Medical Diagnostics and Treatment Applications IX; 717305 (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.810170
Event: SPIE BiOS, 2009, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

We report the fabrication and the characterization of perfluorinated cladded multimode polymer optical fibers tapers. The fibers employed was a graded-index polymer optical fibers with core and cladding diameters of 62.5/90 and 120/160 and very low refractive index (nCore = 1.356, nCladding = 1.342). The tapers were fabricated using the heat-and-pull technique. This approach permits a good prediction of the taper shape and waist dimension. Despite to the fact that taper core is not in direct contact with the external medium, these fiber tapers can be used for sensing applications. In fact, some of the guided modes are no more confined in the core region but can still be guided by the fiber in the cladding region. Therefore, there is an evanescent wave in the external medium, related to bound and tunneling rays that can pass the taper region in the cladding. In particular, the very low refractive indexes of the core-cladding perfluorinated polymers permit a strong enhancement of the power fraction in the evanescent wave in aqueous environments (n=1.33). We carried out experiments evanescent wave spectroscopy by immerging the tapered fiber water containing a dissolved organic blue dye (Methylene blue) for a concentration range 5e-8-1e-5 M.

Citation Download Citation

Roberto Gravina and Romeo Bernini "Polymer optical fiber tapers for biosensing applications", Proc. SPIE 7173, Optical Fibers and Sensors for Medical Diagnostics and Treatment Applications IX, 717305 (20 February 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.810170

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available