Nampoori, V P N; Suresh, Kumar P; Unnikrishnan, K P; Thomas Lee, S; Girijavallabhan, C P; Sugunan, S; Radhakrishnan, P(International School of Photonics, May 15, 2003)
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Abstract:
In this communication, we discuss the details of fabricating an off-line fibre
optic sensor (FOS) based on evanescent wave absorption for detecting trace
amounts of Fe3+ in water. Two types of FOS are developed; one type uses
the unclad portion of a multimode silica fibre as the sensing region whereas
the other employs the microbent portion of a multimode plastic fibre as the
sensing region. Sensing is performed by measuring the absorption of the
evanescent wave in a reagent medium surrounding the sensing region. To
evaluate the relative merits of the two types of FOS in Fe3+ sensing, a
comparative study of the sensors is made, which reveals the superiority of
the latter in many respects, such as smaller sensing length, use of a double
detection scheme (for detecting both core and cladding modes) and higher
sensitivity of cladding mode detection at an intermediate range of
concentration along with the added advantage that plastic fibres are
inexpensive. A detection limit of 1 ppb is observed in both types of fibre and
the range of detection can be as large as 1 ppb–50 ppm. All the
measurements are carried out using a LabVIEW set-up.
Thomas Lee, S; Aneeshkumar, B; Radhakrishnan, P; Vallabhan, C P G; Nampoori, V P N(Elsevier, May , 2002)
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Abstract:
Optical fiber sensors developed for measuring pH values usually employ an unclad and unstrained section of the fiber. In this paper, we describe the design and fabrication of a microbent fiber optic sensor that can be used for pH sensing. In order to obtain the desired performance, a permanently microbent portion of a plastic optic fiber is coated with a thin film of dye impregnated sol–gel material. The measurements are simultaneously carried out in two independent detection schemes viz., the bright field detection configuration for detecting the core modes and dark field detection configuration, for detecting the cladding modes. The results of measurements of core mode-power and cladding mode-power variation with change in pH of a solution surrounding the coated portion of the fiber is presented. This paper thus demonstrates how a bare plastic fiber can be modified for pH sensing in a simple and cost effective manner.