Abstract
A type of flexible hydrogel optical fiber, which consisted of a permeable core/clad structure with a step-index profile for highly efficient excitation light guiding and fluorescence emission collecting, has been judiciously designed and fabricated. The effects of refractive index and core/clad diameter on propagation loss of hydrogel optical fiber have been examined and verified theoretically and experimentally. To demonstrate the feasibility of the designed optical fiber for fluorescence sensing, in a representative experiment two types of fluorescent materials serving as a pH probe and internal reference were integrated into the core of the designed hydrogel optical fiber to obtain a ratiometric pH sensor, which eliminated the disturbance of the external environment. The prepared fluorescent sensor displayed linear responses to pH values ranging from 3.79 to 9.55 with a high sensitivity of 0.68 per pH unit, indicating the great potential of the hydrogel fiber-based sensor for on-site, real-time, and highly sensitive detection of pH in aqueous environments.
PDF Article
More Like This
Cited By
You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.
Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription
Add to BibSonomy