Abstract

The use of uniform-waist cladded multimode tapered optical fibers is demonstrated for evanescent wave spectroscopy and sensors. The tapering is a simple, low-loss process and consists of stretching the fiber while it is being heated with an oscillating flame torch. As examples, a refractive-index sensor and a hydrogen sensor are demonstrated by use of a conventional graded-index multimode optical fiber. Also, absorbance spectra are measured while the tapers are immersed in an absorbing liquid. It is found experimentally that the uniform waist is the part of the taper that contributes most to the sensor sensitivity. The taper waist diameter may also be used to adjust the sensor dynamic range.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

Fabrication and modeling of uniform-waist single-mode tapered optical fiber sensors

Joel Villatoro, David Monzón-Hernández, and Efrain Mejía
Appl. Opt. 42(13) 2278-2283 (2003)

Transmission property and evanescent wave absorption of cladded multimode fiber tapers

Shangping Guo and Sacharia Albin
Opt. Express 11(3) 215-223 (2003)

Eigenvalue equation and core-mode cutoff of weakly guiding tapered fiber as three layer optical waveguide and used as biochemical sensor

C. L. Linslal, P. M. S. Mohan, A. Halder, and T. K. Gangopadhyay
Appl. Opt. 51(16) 3445-3452 (2012)

Tapered-fiber-based refractive index sensor at an air/solution interface

Ping Lu, Jeremie Harris, Xiaozhen Wang, Ganbin Lin, Liang Chen, and Xiaoyi Bao
Appl. Opt. 51(30) 7368-7373 (2012)

Optical-fiber surface-plasmon resonance sensor with multiple resonance peaks

David Monzón-Hernández, Joel Villatoro, Dimas Talavera, and Donato Luna-Moreno
Appl. Opt. 43(6) 1216-1220 (2004)