Fabrication of Optical Fiber Gas Sensor with Polyaniline Clad

Optical fiber sensors have been used to detect small amounts of chemical species. In this work, a new thin polymer-clad fiber sensor is developed. Polyaniline is chemically synthesized and thin clad layers of the polymer are easily deposited on optical fiber by dip-coating technique. The optical property of polyaniline as a sensing material is analyzed by UV-Vis-NIR. The light source is stabilized He-Ne laser at 635 nm wavelength with 1 mW power. The light power transmitted through the optical fiber is measured with a spectrophotometer. By selecting a fixed incident angle, variation of transmitted light intensity through the optical fiber can be detected as gas molecules absorbed in the polyaniline clad layer. Among the various gases, the fabricated optical fiber sensor shows good sensitivity to gas. The optical fiber sensors was shown more improved properties than polymer based sensors which measure conductivity changes.