A Micro Structure POF Relative Humidity Sensor Modified With Agarose Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance and Evanescent Wave Loss

Abstract

A novel high sensitivity relative humidity (RH) sensor was proposed by using micro structure plastic optical fiber (POF) based on the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect and the evanescent wave (EW) loss. The micro structure was fabricated on the POF and coated with a gold layer and agarose, adopting the sputtering and dip-coating technique. These construction effects on the attenuation of power caused by the SPR effect and the EW loss were used to perform RH detections. The agarose’s different refractive indexes (RIs) caused fluctuations in the transmission power when the humidity increased. The demonstrated experimental results showed that the proposed sensor achieved a linear response from 20% RH to 80% RH with a high sensitivity of 0.595µW/%. The proposed sensor had the advantages of fast response and recovery. Furthermore, the temperature dependence and the repeatability test of the sensor were also performed.

Keywords

SPR / evanescent wave loss / agarose / RH sensor

References

[1] Alwis L, Sun T, Grattan K T V. Optical fibre-based sensor technology for humidity and moisture measurement: review of recent progress. Measurement, 2013, 46(10): 4052-4074.

[2] Hernandez F U, Morgan S P, Hayes-Gill B R, Harvey D, Kinnear W, Norris A, . Characterization and use of a fiber optic sensor based on PAH/SiO₂ film for humidity sensing in ventilator care equipment. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2016, 63(9): 1985-1992.

[3] Barrias A, Casas J R, Villalba S. A review of distributed optical fiber sensors for civil engineering applications. Sensors, 2016, 16(5): 748-1-748-35.

[4] Ascorbe J, Corres J M, Arregui F J, Matias I R. Recent developments in fiber optics humidity sensors. Sensors, 2017, 17(4): 893-1-893-23.

[5] Urrutia A, Goicoechea J, Ricchiuti A L, Barrera D, Sales S, Arregui F J. Simultaneous measurement of humidity and temperature based on a partially coated optical fiber long period grating. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2016, 227(5): 135-141.

[6] Wang Y Q, Shen C Y, Lou W M, Shentu F Y, Zhong C, Dong X Y, . Fiber optic relative humidity sensor based on the tilted fiber Bragg grating coated with graphene oxide. Applied Physics Letters, 2016, 109(3): 031107-1-031107-5.

[7] Yan G, Liang Y, Lee E H, He S. Novel Knob-integrated fiber Bragg grating sensor with polyvinyl alcohol coating for simultaneous relative humidity and temperature measurement. Optics Express, 2015, 23(12): 15624-15634.

[8] Xie Z W, Yan H T, Li Y F, Zhao X Y. A humidity fiber sensor based on both end-sides of a fiber Bragg grating coated with polyimide. Optical Fiber Technology, 2020, 57, 102220.

[9] Yan H T, Liu Q, Ming Y, Luo W, Chen Y, Lu Y Q. Metallic grating on a D-shaped fiber for refractive index sensing. IEEE Photonics Journal, 2013, 5(5): 4800706-4800706.

[10] Zheng S, Zhu Y, Krishnaswamy S. Fiber humidity sensors with high sensitivity and selectivity based on interior nanofilm-coated photonic crystal fiber long-period gratings. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2013, 176, 264-274.

[11] Gao R, Lu D F, Cheng J, Jiang Y, Jiang L, Qi Z M. Humidity sensor based on power leakage at resonance wavelengths of a hollow core fiber coated with reduced graphene oxide. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2016, 222, 618-624.

[12] Soltanian M R K, Sharbirin A S, Ariannejad M M, Amiri I S, De La Rue R M, Brambilla G, . Variable waist-diameter Mach-Zehnder tapered-fiber interferometer as humidity and temperature sensor. IEEE Sensors Journal, 2016, 16(15): 5987-5992.

[13] Ascorbe J, Corres J M, Matias I R, Arregui F J. High sensitivity humidity sensor based on cladding-etched optical fiber and lossy mode resonances. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2016, 233, 7-16.

[14] Chen H, Gu Z, Gao K. Humidity sensor based on cascaded chirped long-period fiber gratings coated with TiO₂/SnO₂ composite films. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2014, 196, 18-22.

[15] Zamarreño C R, Hernaez M, Sanchez P, Del Villar I, Matias I R, Arregui F J. Optical fiber humidity sensor based on lossy mode resonances supported by TiO2/PSS coatings. Procedia Engineering, 2011, 25, 1385-1388.

[16] Sanchez P, Zamarreno C R, Hernaez M, Del Villar I, Matias I R, Arregui F J. Considerations for lossy-mode resonance-based optical fiber sensor. IEEE Sensors Journal, 2012, 13(4): 1167-1171.

[17] Khijwania S K, Srinivasan K L, Singh J P. An evanescent-wave optical fiber relative humidity sensor with enhanced sensitivity. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2005, 104(2): 217-222.

[18] Xiao Y, Zhang J, Cai X, Tan S Z, Yu J H, Lu H H, . Reduced graphene oxide for fiber-optic humidity sensing. Optics Express, 2014, 22(25): 31555-31567.

[19] Shrivastav A M, Mishra S K, Gupta B D. Fiber optic SPR sensor for the detection of melamine using molecular imprinting. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2015, 212, 404-410.

[20] Cennamo N, D’Agostino G, Pesavento M, Zeni L. High selectivity and sensitivity sensor based on MIP and SPR in tapered plastic optical fibers for the detection of L-nicotine. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2014, 191, 529-536.

[21] Cennamo N, Pesavento M, Lunelli L, Vanzetti L, Pederzolli C, Zeni L, . An easy way to realize SPR aptasensor: a multimode plastic optical fiber platform for cancer biomarkers detection. Talanta, 2015, 140, 88-95.

[22] Verma R, Gupta B D. A novel approach for simultaneous sensing of urea and glucose by SPR based optical fiber multianalyte sensor. Analyst, 2014, 139(6): 1449-1455.

[23] Fan Z K, Li S G, Liu Q, An G W, Chen H L, Li J S, . High sensitivity of refractive index sensor based on analyte-filled photonic crystal fiber with surface plasmon resonance. IEEE Photonics Journal, 2015, 7(3): 1-9.

[24] Liu Z H, Wei Y, Zhang Y, Liu C L, Zhang Y X, Zhao E M, . Distributed fiber surface plasmon resonance sensor based on the incident angle adjusting method. Optics Letters, 2015, 40(19): 4452-4455.

[25] Wei Y, Liu C L, Zhang Y H, Luo Y X, Nie X F, Liu Z H, . Multi-channel SPR sensor based on the cascade application of the single-mode and multimode optical fiber. Optics Communications, 2017, 390, 82-87.

[26] Liu Z H, Wang Y, Zhang Y, Wang Y S, Zhao E M, Zhang Y X, . A multi-channel fiber SPR sensor based on TDM technology. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 2016, 226, 326-331.

[27] Leung A, Rijal K, Shankar P M, Mutharasan R. Effects of geometry on transmission and sensing potential of tapered fiber sensors. Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 2006, 21(12): 2202-2209.

[28] Feng D J, Zhang M S, Liu G X, Liu X L, Jia D F. D-shaped plastic optical fiber sensor for testing refractive index. IEEE Sensors Journal, 2014, 14(5): 1673-1676.

[29] I. Puspita, F. I. Husada, and A. M. Hatta, “Detection of lard adulteration in olive oil by using tapered plastic optical fiber (POF) spectroscopy,” in Third International Seminar on Photonics, Optics, and Its Applications (ISPhOA 2018), Indonesia, 2019, pp. 110440H.

[30] Dwivedi Y S, Sharma A K, Gupta B D. Influence of design parameters on the performance of a surface plasmon sensor based fiber optic sensor. Plasmonics, 2008, 3(2–3): 79-86.

[31] Kanso M, Cuenot S, Louarn G. Sensitivity of optical fiber sensor based on surface plasmon resonance: modeling and experiments. Plasmonics, 2008, 3(2–3): 49-57.

[32] Batumalay M, Harun S W, Ahmad F, Nor R M, Zulkepely N R, Ahmad H. Study of a fiber optic humidity sensor based on agarose gel. Journal of Modern Optics, 2014, 61(3): 244-248.

[33] Ghaffar A, Hou Y L, Liu W Y, Dharejo F A, Zhang H X, Jia P G, . Two-dimensional displacement optical fiber sensor based on macro-bending effect. Optics & Laser Technology, 2019, 120, 105688.

[34] Guan H Y, Xia K, Chen C Y, Luo Y H, Tang J Y, Lu H H, . Tungsten disulfide wrapped on micro fiber for enhanced humidity sensing. Optical Materials Express, 2017, 7(5): 1686-1696.

[35] Wang Y, Shen C, Lou W, Shentu F. Fiber optic humidity sensor based on the graphene oxide/PVA composite film. Optics Communications, 2016, 372, 229-234.

[36] Liu S, Meng H, Deng S, Wei Z, Wang F, Tan C. Fiber humidity sensor based on a graphene-coated core-offset Mach-Zehnder interferometer. IEEE Sensors Letters, 2018, 2(3): 1-4.

[37] Guo Z, Chu F H, Fan J Y, Zhang Z, Bian Z L, Li G F, . Study of macro-bending biconical tapered plastic optical fiber for relative humidity sensing. Sensor Review, 2019, 39(3): 352-357.

[38] Batumalay M, Harun S W, Irawati N, Ahmad H, Arof H. A study of relative humidity fiber-optic sensors. IEEE Sensors Journal, 2014, 15(3): 1945-1950.