Towards Extremely Sensitive Ultraviolet-Light Sensors Employing Photochromic Optical Microfiber

Abstract

We propose an extremely responsive ultraviolet-light sensor (-1.39 × 10 6 dB/(W/cm 2)) based on photochromic optical microfiber. A densely packed planar coil of ZBLAN optical microfiber is doped with photochromic dyes. Under ultraviolet radiation, the photochromic microfiber experiences temporary photodarkening, and the change in the transmission of the probe light provides a measure of the incident ultraviolet light. This novel design grants an enhancement in sensitivity (3.13 nW/cm 2) by at least one order of magnitude compared to traditional electrical counterparts.