Search

An all-fiber glucose sensor is proposed and demonstrated based on a helical intermediate-period fiber grating (HIPFG) produced by using a hydrogen/oxygen flame heating method. The HIPFG, with a grating length of 1.7 cm and a period of 35 μm, presents four sets of double dips with low insertion losses and strong coupling strengths in the transmission spectrum. The HIPFG possesses an averaged refractive index (RI) sensitivity of 213.6 nm/RIU nm/RIU in the RI range of 1.33–1.36 and a highest RI sensitivity of 472 nm/RIU at RI of 1.395. In addition, the HIPFG is demonstrated with a low-temperature sensitivity of 3.67 pm/°C, which promises a self-temperature compensation in glucose detection. In the glucose-sensing test, the HIPFG sensor manifests a detection sensitivity of 0.026 nm/(mg/mL) and a limit of detection (LOD) of 1 mg/mL. Moreover, the HIPFG sensor exhibits good stability in 2 h, indicating its capacity for long-time detection. The properties of easy fabrication, high flexibility, insensitivity to temperature, and good stability of the proposed HIPFG endow it with a promising potential for long-term and compact biosensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood glucose concentration is important for metabolic homeostasis in humans and animals. Many diabetic patients need to detect blood glucose daily which burdens community hospitals and family healthcare. Optical fiber sensors are widely used in biomedical detection because of their compact structure, fast response, high sensitivity, low cost, and ease of operation. In this work, we constructed a Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity biosensor for the fast detection of glucose concentration in serum. The femtosecond laser micromachining was applied to fabricate the FP cavity by printing the fiber-tip fixed-supported bridge at the end face of the optical fiber. An additional hemisphere was printed at the center of the outer surface of the bridge to avoid multi-beam interference. The results demonstrated that the proposed biosensor had high refractive index (RI) detection sensitivity, roughly 1039 nm/RIU at a wavelength of 1590 nm, and the detection sensitivity for glucose was around 0.185 nm/ (mg/mL) at a wavelength of 1590 nm. Due to its high sensitivity, compact structure, and fast response, the FP cavity biosensor has great potential to be applied in family healthcare for glucose concentration detection of diabetic patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We fabricated a refractive index sensor based on in-fiber Michelson interferometer. [•] The sensor has the advantages of short size (less than 2mm) and easy fabrication. [•] We use the method of intensity-modulated to solve cross sensitivity. [•] The sensor has the sensitivity of −208.24dB/RIU at the refractive index of 1.440. [•] The sensor could apply in the fields of chemical and biomedical sensing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A highly sensitive temperature sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of a side-polished single mode fiber is demonstrated. The sensor consists of a gold film coated side-polished fiber covered by a layer of UV-curable adhesive. Before introducing the UV-curable adhesive, the gold-coated fiber exhibits refractive index (RI) sensitivity of 1691.6 nm/RIU to 8800 nm/RIU in the range of 1.32 to 1.43. The resonant wavelength of the SPR sensor shifts to 650 nm when the adhesive is coated on the gold film, and is fixed at about 725 nm when the adhesive is cured. Due to the high thermo-optic and thermal expansion coefficient of the adhesive, the sensor structure achieves a temperature sensitivity of −0.978 nm/°C between 25 °C and 100 °C. The proposed optical fiber SPR sensor is simple, highly sensitive and cost effective, which may find potential applications for temperature measurements in the biomedical and environmental industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate a surface plasmon resonance refractive sensor based on the side-polished single mode optical fiber and investigated the sensor performance decay induced by silver coating degradation. The sensor showed fast response to the refractive index liquid in the range from 1.32 to 1.40 RIU. The highest sensitivity up to 4365.5 nm/RIU and a FOM of 51.61 RIU −1 were achieved, which were comparable to the reported polished-fiber-based SPR sensors. Characteristics of the silver-coated sensor after exposure to the air as well as to the liquid environment were investigated. The sensor always stored in dry air could respond stably two weeks later with sensitivity comparable with the fresh one and lower resolution due to the broadened resonant dip. But the sensor immersed in the refractive liquid for 30 min firstly and then exposed to ambient air for hours decayed dramatically due to silver degradation. The presented silver-coated SPR sensor could be used as a simple, cost-effective, disposable device in bio-chemical, environment, and food safety detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]