Abstract
As a low-dimensional optical fiber with diameter close to or below the wavelength of light, optical micro/nanofiber (MNF) offers a number of favorable properties for optical sensing, which have been exploited in a variety of sensing applications, including physical, chemical, and biological sensors. In this paper we review the principles and applications of silica, glass, and polymer optical micro/nanofibers for physical and chemical sensing.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Reference
A. Leung, P. M. Shankar, and R. Mutharasan, “A review of fiber-optic biosensors,” Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, vol. 125, no. 2, pp. 688–703, 2007.
O. S. Wolfbeis, “Fiber-Optic Chemical Sensors and Biosensors,” Analytical Chemistry, vol. 80, no. 12, pp. 4269–4283, 2008.
J. Bures and R. Ghosh, “Power density of the evanescent field in the vicinity of a tapered fiber,” Journal of the Optical Society America A, vol. 16, no. 8, pp. 1992–1996, 1999.
L. M. Tong, J. Y. Lou, and E. Mazur, “Single-mode guiding properties of subwavelength-diameter silica and silicon wire waveguides,” Optics Express, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 1025–1035, 2004.
J. Y. Lou, L. M. Tong, and Z. Z. Ye, “Modeling of silica nanowires for optical sensing,” Optics Express, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 2135–2140, 2005.
L. M. Tong, R. R. Gattass, J. B. Ashcom et al., “Subwavelength-diameter silica wires for low-loss optical wave guiding,” Nature, vol. 426, no. 6968, pp. 816–819, 2003.
G. Brambilla, V. Finazzi, and D. J. Richardson, “Ultra-low-loss optical fiber nanotapers,” Optics Express, vol. 12, no. 10, pp. 2258–2263, 2004.
S. Leon-Saval, T. Birks, W. Wadsworth et al., “Supercontinuum generation in submicron fibre waveguides,” Optics. Express, vol. 12, no. 13, pp. 2864–2869, 2004.
S. A. Harfenist, S. D. Cambron, E. W. Nelson et al., “Direct drawing of suspended filamentary micro- and nanostructures from liquid polymers,” Nano Letters, vol. 4, no. 10, pp. 1931–1937, 2004.
M. Sumetsky, Y. Dulashko, and A. Hale, “Fabrication and study of bent and coiled free silica nanowires: Self-coupling microloop optical interferometer,” Optics Express, vol. 12, no. 15, pp. 3521–3531, 2004.
G. Brambilla, E. Koizumi, X. Feng et al., “Compound-glass optical nanowires,” Electronics Letters, vol. 41, no. 7, pp. 400–402, 2005.
L. M. Tong, J. Y. Lou, Z. Z. Ye et al., “Self-modulated taper drawing of silica nanowires,” Nanotechnology, vol. 16, no. 9, pp. 1445–1448, 2005.
G. Brambilla, F. Xu, and X. Feng, “Fabrication of optical fibre nanowires and their optical and mechanical characterisation,” Electronics Letters, vol. 42, no. 9, pp. 517–519, 2006.
L. Shi, X. F. Chen, H. J. Liu et al., “Fabrication of submicron-diameter silica fibers using electric strip heater,” Optics Express, vol. 14, no. 12, pp. 5055–5060, 2006.
L. M. Tong, L. L. Hu, J. J. Zhang et al., “Photonic nanowires directly drawn from bulk glasses,” Optics Express, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 82–87, 2006.
E. J. Zhang, W. D. Sacher, and J. K. Poon, “Hydrofluoric acid flow etching of low-loss subwavelength-diameter biconical fiber tapers,” Optics Express, vol. 18, no. 21, pp. 22593–22598, 2010.
S. Pricking and H. Giessen, “Tapering fibers with complex shape,” Optics Express, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 3426–3437, 2010.
J. Y. Lou, L. M. Tong, and Z. Z. Ye, “Dispersion shifts in optical nanowires with thin dielectric coatings,” Optics Express, vol. 14, no. 16, pp. 6993–6998, 2006.
G. Y. Zhai and L. M. Tong, “Roughness-induced radiation losses in optical micro or nanofibers,” Optics Express, vol. 15, no. 21, pp. 13805–13816, 2007.
A. V. Kovalenko, V. N. Kurashov, and A. V. Kisil, “Radiation losses in optical nanofibers with random rough surface,” Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 8, pp. 5797–5806, 2008.
H. K. Yu, S. S. Wang, J. Fu et al., “Modeling bending losses of optical nanofibers or nanowires,” Applied Optics, vol. 48, no. 22, pp. 4365–4369, 2009.
S. S. Wang, Z. F. Hu, H. K. Yu et al., “Endface reflectivities of optical nanowires,” Optics Express, vol. 17, no. 13, pp. 10881–10886, 2009.
M. Sumetsky, Y. Dulashko, J. M. Fini et al., “Optical microfiber loop resonator,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 86, no. 16, pp. 161108, 2005.
L. M. Tong, J. Y. Lou, R. R. Gattass et al., “Assembly of silica nanowires on silica aerogels for microphotonic devices,” Nano Letters, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 259–262, 2005.
X. S. Jiang, L. M. Tong, G. Vienne et al., “Demonstration of optical microfiber knot resonators,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 88, no. 22, pp. 223501, 2006.
X. D. Jiang, Y. Chen, G. Vienne et al., “All-fiber add-drop filters based on microfiber knot resonators,” Optics Letters, vol. 32, no. 12, pp. 1710–1712, 2007.
F. Xu and G. Brambilla, “Manufacture of 3-D microfiber coil resonators,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 19, no. 17–20, pp. 1481–1483, 2007.
Y. Chen, Z. Ma, Q. Yang et al., “Compact optical short-pass filters based on microfibers,” Optics Letters, vol. 33, no. 21, pp. 2565–2567, 2008.
G. Vienne, A. Coillet, P. Grelu et al., “Demonstration of a reef knot microfiber resonator,” Optics Express, vol. 17, no. 8, pp. 6224–6229, 2009.
S. S. Wang, Z. F. Hu, Y. H. Li et al., “All-fiber Fabry-Perot resonators based on microfiber Sagnac loop mirrors,” Optics Letters, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 253–255, 2009.
P. Wang, L. Zhang, Z. Y. Yang et al., “Fusion Spliced Microfiber Closed-Loop Resonators,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 22, no. 15, pp. 1075–1077, 2010.
X. Guo, Y. H. Li, X. S. Jiang et al., “Demonstration of critical coupling in microfiber loops wrapped around a copper rod,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 91, no. 7, pp. 073512, 2007.
Y. H. Li and L. M. Tong, “Mach-Zehnder interferometers assembled with optical microfibers or nanofibers,” Optics Letters, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 303–305, 2008.
F. Xu and G. Brambilla, “Embedding optical microfiber coil resonators in Teflon,” Optics Letters, vol. 32, no. 15, pp. 2164–2166, 2007.
N. Lou, R. Jha, J. L. Domínguez-Juárez et al., “Embedded optical micro/nano-fibers for stable devices,” Optics Letters, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 571–573, 2010.
I. M. White, H. Oveys, and X. Fan, “Liquid-core optical ring-resonator sensors,” Optics Letters, vol. 31, no. 9, pp. 1319–1321, 2006.
A. M. Armani and K. J. Vahala, “Heavy water detection using ultra-high-Q microcavities,” Optics Letters, vol. 31, no. 12, pp. 1896–1898, 2006.
D. Keng, S. R. McAnanama, I. Teraoka et al., “Resonance fluctuations of a whispering gallery mode biosensor by particles undergoing Brownian motion,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 91, no. 10, pp. 103902, 2007.
F. Vollmer, D. Braun, A. Libchaber et al., “Protein detection by optical shift of a resonant microcavity,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 80, no. 21, pp. 4057–4059, 2002.
P. Polynkin, A. Polynkin, N. Peyghambarian et al., “Evanescent field-based optical fiber sensing device for measuring the refractive index of liquids in microfluidic channels,” Optics Letters, vol. 30, no. 11, pp. 1273–1275, 2005.
W. Liang, Y. Y. Huang, Y. Xu et al., “Highly sensitive fiber Bragg grating refractive index sensors,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 86, no. 15, pp. 151122, 2005.
X. Fang, C. R. Liao, and D. N. Wang, “Femtosecond laser fabricated fiber Bragg grating in microfiber for refractive index sensing,” Optics Letters, vol. 35, no. 7, pp. 1007–1009, 2010.
Y. H. Tai and P. K. Wei, “Sensitive liquid refractive index sensors using tapered optical fiber tips,” Optics Letters, vol. 35, no. 7, pp. 944–946, 2010.
X. Xing, Y. Wang, and B. Li, “Nanofibers drawing and nanodevices assembly in poly(trimethylene terephthalate),” Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 14, pp. 10815–10822, 2008.
H. Zhu, Y. Wang, and B. Li, “Tunable Refractive Index Sensor with Ultracompact Structure Twisted by Poly(trimethylene terephthalate) Nanowires,” ACS Nano, vol. 3, no. 10, pp. 3110–3114, 2009.
L. Shi, Y. H. Xu, W. Tan et al., “Simulation of optical microfiber loop resonators for ambient refractive index sensing,” Sensors, vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 689–696, 2007.
X. Guo and L. M. Tong, “Supported microfiber loops for optical sensing,” Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 19, pp. 14429–14434, 2008.
F. Xu, P. Horak, and G. Brambilla, “Optical microfiber coil resonator refractometric sensor,” Optics Express, vol. 15, no. 12, pp. 7888–7893, 2007.
F. Xu and B. Gilberto, “Demonstration of a refractometric sensor based on optical microfiber coil resonator,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 92, no. 10, pp. 101126, 2008.
F. Xu, V. Pruneri, V. Finazzi et al., “An embedded optical nanowire loop resonator refractometric sensor,” Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 1062–1067, 2008.
F. Xu, G. Brambilla, and Y. Q. Lu, “A microfluidic refractometric sensor based on gratings in optical fibre microwires,” Optics Express, vol. 17, no. 23, pp. 20866–20871, 2009.
P. H. Wu, C. H. Sui, and B. Q. Ye, “Modelling nanofiber Mach-Zehnder interferometers for refractive index sensors,” Journal of Modern Optics, vol. 56, no. 21, pp. 2335–2339, 2009.
M. Sumetsky, Y. Dulashko, J. M. Fini et al., “The microfiber loop resonator: Theory, experiment, and application,” Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 242–250, 2006.
Y. Wu, Y. J. Rao, Y. H. Chen et al., “Miniature fiber-optic temperature sensors based on silica/polymer microfiber knot resonators,” Optics Express, vol. 17, no. 20, pp. 18142–18147, 2009.
X. Zeng, Y. Wu, C. L. Hou et al., “A temperature sensor based on optical microfiber knot resonator,” Optics Communications, vol. 282, no. 18, pp. 3817–3819, 2009.
J. L. Kou, J. Feng, L. Ye et al., “Miniaturized fiber taper reflective interferometer for high temperature measurement,” Optics. Express, vol. 18, no. 13, pp. 14245–14250, 2010.
B. B. Li, Q. Y. Wang, Y. F. Xiao et al., “On chip, high-sensitivity thermal sensor based on high-Q polydimethylsiloxane-coated microresonator,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 96, no. 25, pp. 251109, 2010.
J. Scheuer, “Fiber microcoil optical gyroscope,” Optics Letters, vol. 34, no. 11, pp. 1630–1632, 2009.
C. L. Hou, Y. Wu, X. Zeng et al., “Novel high sensitivity accelerometer based on a microfiber loop resonator,” Optical Engineering, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 014402, 2010.
M. Belal, Z. Song, Y. Jung et al., “Optical fiber microwire current sensor,” Optics Letters, vol. 35, no. 18, pp. 3045–3047, 2010.
F. Gu, L. Zhang, X. Yin et al., “Polymer single-nanowire optical sensors,” Nano Letters, vol. 8, no. 9, pp. 2757–2761, 2008.
L. Zhang, F. X. Gu, J. Y. Lou et al., “Fast detection of humidity with a subwavelength-diameter fiber taper coated with gelatin film,” Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 17, pp. 13349–13353, 2008.
J. Villatoro, D. Luna-Moreno, and D. Monzon-Hernandez, “Optical fiber hydrogen sensor for concentrations below the lower explosive limit,” Sensors and Actuators B-Chemical, vol. 110, no. 1, pp. 23–27, 2005.
J. Villatoro and D. Monzon-Hernandez, “Fast detection of hydrogen with nano fiber tapers coated with ultra thin palladium layers,” Optics Express, vol. 13, no. 13, pp. 5087–5092, 2005.
F. X. Gu, X. F. Yin, H. K. Yu et al., “Polyaniline/polystyrene single-nanowire devices for highly selective optical detection of gas mixtures,” Optics Express, vol. 17, no. 13, pp. 11230–11235, 2009.
F. Warken, E. Vetsch, D. Meschede et al., “Ultra-sensitive surface absorption spectroscopy using sub-wavelength diameter optical fibers,” Optics Express, vol. 15, no. 19, pp. 11952–11958, 2007.
A. Stiebeiner, O. Rehband, R. Garcia-Fernandez et al., “Ultra-sensitive fluorescence spectroscopy of isolated surface-adsorbed molecules using an optical nanofiber,” Optics Express, vol. 17, no. 24, pp. 21704–21711, 2009.
G. Vishnoi, T. C. Goel, and P. K. C. Pillai, “Spectrophotometric studies of chemical species using tapered core multimode optical fiber,” Sensors and Actuators B-Chemical, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 43–48, 1997.
F. Baldini, L. Ciaccheri, A. Falai et al., “Thymol blue immobilized on tapered fibres as an optical transducer for pH sensing,” Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Fiber Sensors X, vol. 3540, pp. 28–33, 1999.
P. J. Wiejata, P. M. Shankar, and R. Mutharasan, “Fluorescent sensing using biconical tapers,” Sensors and Actuators B-Chemical, vol. 96, no. 1–2, pp. 315–320, 2003.
K. Waich, T. Mayr, and I. Klimant, “Microsensors for detection of ammonia at ppb-concentration levels,” Measurement Science & Technology, vol. 18, no. 10, pp. 3195–3201, 2007.
C. R. Zamarreno, J. Bravo, J. Goicoechea et al., “Response time enhancement of pH sensing films by means of hydrophilic nanostructured coatings,” Sensors and Actuators B-Chemical, vol. 128, no. 1, pp. 138–144, 2007.
Y. Sun and X. Fan, “Analysis of ring resonators for chemical vapor sensor development,” Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 14, pp. 10254–10268, 2008.
Y. Sun, S. I. Shopova, G. Frye-Mason et al., “Rapid chemical-vapor sensing using optofluidic ring resonators,” Optics Letters, vol. 33, no. 8, pp. 788–790, 2008.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, L., Lou, J. & Tong, L. Micro/nanofiber optical sensors. Photonic Sens 1, 31–42 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13320-010-0022-z
Received:
Revised:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13320-010-0022-z