Abstract
We demonstrate a low-cost, high-sensitivity, all-fiber microcantilever sensor, a fiber-to-tip microcantilever sensor (FTMS). In this sensor, a nanosize fiber tip serves as both microcantilever and miniaturized light probe. Subnanometer displacements of the fiber-tip cantilever are expected to be registered by measuring the light intensity that it receives from a collinearly aligned single-mode fiber (SMF). We found that the cantilever-displacement curve is defined by the Gaussian profile of the fundamental mode, , guided in the aligned SMF. An FTMS vibration sensor has been implemented as an example of the technique, exhibiting an estimated resolution of 2 Å. The FTMS should open new ways of inexpensive fiber-optic microcantilever sensing.
© 2010 Optical Society of America
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