Label-Free and Reproducible Chemical Sensor Using the Vertical-Fluid-Array Induced Optical Fiber Long Period Grating (VIOLIN)

Abstract

Fiber optical refractometers have gained a substantial reputation in biological and chemical sensing domain regarding their label-free and remote-operation working mode. However, the practical breakthrough of the fiber optical bio/chemosensor is impeded by a lack of reconfigurability as well as the explicitness of the determination between bulk and surface refractive indices. In this letter, we further implement the highly flexible and reproducible long period grating called “VIOLIN” in chemical sensing area for the demonstration of moving those obstacles. In this configuration, the liquid is not only leveraged as the chemical carrier but also the periodic modulation of the optical fiber to facilitate the resonant signal. The thiol compound that is adsorbed by the fluidic substrate can be transduced to the pure alteration of the bulk refractive index of the liquid, which can be sensitively perceived by the resonant drift. Taking advantage of its freely dismantled feature, the VIOLIN sensor enables flexible reproduction and high throughput detection, yielding a new vision to the fiber optic biochemical sensing field.

Label-Free Creatinine Optical Sensing Using Molecularly Imprinted Titanium Dioxide-Polycarboxylic Acid Hybrid Thin Films: A Preliminary Study for Urine Sample Analysis

“…Among various fiber optic sensing methods, long period grating (LPG) is typically produced by the periodic modulation of the refractive index (RI) of the core of an optical fiber, which enables the coupling of light between the core mode and cladding modes [15]. Consequently, this characteristic of LPG results in label-free biological and chemical sensing of target molecules, which reflect the grating resonance shift transduced by molecular reaction events that occurred on LPGs with a sensitive coating [16,17].…”