Liquid-core low-refractive-index-contrast Bragg fiber sensor

Abstract

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a low-refractive-index-contrast hollow-core Bragg fiber sensor for liquid analyte refractive index detection. The sensor operates using a resonant sensing principle-when the refractive index of a liquid analyte in the fiber core changes, the resonant confinement of the fiber guided mode will also change, leading to both the spectral shifts and intensity changes in fiber transmission. As a demonstration, we characterize the Bragg fiber sensor using a set of NaCl solutions with different concentrations. Strong spectral shifts are obtained with the sensor experimental sensitivity found to be ∼1400 nm/refractive index unit, which is comparable to that of a surface plasmon resonance sensor. Besides using theoretical modeling we show that low-refractive-index-contrast Bragg fibers are more suitable for liquid-analyte sensing applications than their high-refractive-index-contrast counterparts. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.