IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 17, NO.

6, JUNE 2005

1253

High Sensitivity Evanescent Field Fiber Bragg Grating Sensor

Athanasios N. Chryssis, Sang M. Lee, Sang B. Lee, Simarjeet S. Saini, Member, IEEE, and Mario Dagenais, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractIncreased sensitivity to change in surrounding index is shown by etching the core of a ber Bragg grating. A maximum sensitivity of 1394 nm/riu is achieved as the surrounding index approaches the core index. Assuming a detectable spectral resolution of 0.01 nm realized in the experiment, the sensor achieves a min10 6 when the index imum detectable index resolution of 7 2 of the surrounding medium is 1.44. The sensor can be used as a chemical and biosensor and multiple sensors can be multiplexed and interrogated along a single ber. Index TermsBiological sensor, chemical sensor, evanescent eld, ber Bragg grating (FBG).

I. INTRODUCTION ONITORING of physical, chemical, and biological parameters in natural environments is of large importance for ecosystems protection. Fiber-optic sensors offer numerous advantages over electric transducers due to their small size, high sensitivity, and possibility of distributed measurements. Specifically, ber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors have attracted considerable attention [1]. Gratings are simple intrinsic sensing elements which can be photoinduced into a silica ber [2]. The change of wavelength due to the changes in measurand is used for sensing applications. Of particular interest is the use of FBGs as chemical sensors where the change of wavelength is induced by changing the chemical composition around the sensor. In order to measure small changes in composition, it is important for the optical mode to penetrate evanescently into the surrounding solution. Meltz et al. proposed a sensing scheme for chemical sensing based upon Bragg grating in- and out-coupling for increased uorescence excitation [3]. A sensor based upon long-period grating assisted coupling to cladding modes of a ber was presented [4]. A method of increased sensitivity to surrounding index by etching the ber close to the core diameter was presented by Asseh et al. [5]. A sensititvity of 2.66 nm/riu was achieved with the diameter of the ber etched to 11 m. The sensitivity was increased to 7.3 nm/riu by etching the ber to a diameter of 8.3 m in [6]. Schroeder et al. [7] proposed a method of side-polishing the ber and achieved a sensitivity of 340 nm/riu. In this letter, we demonstrate that the sensitivity can be appreciably increased by etching the ber to diameters
Manuscript received December 7, 2004; revised February 9, 2005. A. N. Chryssis, S. M. Lee, S. S. Saini, and M. Dagenais are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Univeristy of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA (e-mail: chryssis@glue.umd.edu; slee43@umd.edu; ssaini@altanetcomm.com; dage@ eng.umd.edu). S. B. Lee is at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 130-650, Korea (e-mail: sblee@kist.re.kr). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/LPT.2005.846953

Fig. 1. Normalized propagation versus V of a ber. Constant grating curves are also plotted. The intersection gives the Bragg wavelength of the grating.

as small as 3.4 m and having the surrounding index close to that of the ber core. A maximum sensitivity of 1394 nm/riu is achieved. II. THEORY The basic principle of operation commonly used in FBGbased sensors is to monitor the shift in wavelength of the returned Bragg signal with changes in the measurand. The sensitivity of the sensor depends upon the change in the effective index for the waveguided mode, which is related to the change in the refractive index of the measured solution. In order to understand how the Bragg wavelength shifts for different diameters of the ber, a graphical solution was developed. The Bragg wavelength of a grating is given by (1) where is the grating pitch and is the effective index of the propagating mode. As the core of the ber is etched, the modal effective index changes and the reected Bragg wavelength shifts. This is shown in Fig. 1 where the normalized effective index is plotted versus the normalized frequency for a ber and are given by

(2)

1041-1135/$20.00 2005 IEEE

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IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 17, NO. 6, JUNE 2005

(3) is the index of the core, where is the diameter of the ber, is the index of the clad. The versus plot for a ber and can be calculated by solving the modal equations. Also by subas from (1) and in terms of from (2), (3) stituting can be written for the grating as (4) These curves are also plotted in Fig. 1 for different ber diameters. The wavelength window between 1.5 and 1.6 m for different ber diameters is also added for reference. Equations and the Bragg (2) and (4) are both equations of versus wavelength is given by the intersection between these two curves. It should be noted here that as the diameter of the ber does not is decreased, the correspondence between and change. However, when the index of refraction is changed, changes and the Helmholtz the relationship between and equation has to be resolved. Some of the simulation results are summarized here. As the core of the ber is etched, the Bragg wavelength decreases for the same surrounding index. This property can be used to in situ monitor the diameter of the core during the etching process and very good control can be achieved. Also, the Bragg wavelength changes faster for a same change of the surrounding index for ber gratings with reduced core resulting in increased sensitivity for the sensor. This is because the evanescent eld penetrates further into the surrounding medium for small diameter bers. For a constant diameter, the sensitivity also increases as the index of the surrounding medium approaches that of the core of the ber. The theoretical results are plotted alongside experimental values in Section III. III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The ber grating was mounted in a temperature compensated housing for ber protection. The ber gratings used were commercially available with a bandwidth of 0.4 nm. The clad of the ber was initially etched to a diameter close to 20 m in buffered . This rst etch was oxide etch (BOE) at a rate of 799 controlled visually by measuring the diameter of the etched ber under a microscope. The ber was then etched controllably by measuring the Bragg wavelength as the ber was etched. The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 2. Broad-band light from an erbium-doped amplier is coupled into the sensor using a 3-dB coupler. The reected light is measured in an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA). The shift of the Bragg wavelength as the core of the diameter is reduced is shown in Fig. 3. The surrounding material is BOE with an assumed index of 1.33 at a wavelength region of 1.55 m. A theoretical t to the experimental data is also shown. Good agreement between theory and experiment is observed. Using this in situ monitoring, bers with core diameters as small as 3 m were produced with good precision. Fig. 4 plots the peak wavelength of the reected spectrum from the sensor as the index of the surrounding medium is changed around the core of the grating sensor. Two sensors with diameters 3.4 and 4.0 m were used for the measurements.

Fig. 2. Experimental setup for in situ monitoring of ber etch.

Fig. 3.

Shift in Bragg wavelength as the core of the ber is etched.

Fig. 4. Change in Bragg wavelength with changing surrounding index for different diameters of ber.

Very stable Cargille indexes were used for the surrounding medium. The indexes of the uids were calculated at the wavelength region of 1.55 m using Cauchy relationships. As the surrounding index is increased and approaches the core index, the Bragg wavelength increases. Also the rate of change in wavelength with surrounding index increases as the surrounding index approaches the clad index. This rate of change in Bragg wavelength with surrounding index denes the sensitivity of the sensor and is plotted for two different sensors

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change of wavelength of 34.8 pm, more than three times the resolution of the OSA. It should be noted here that for many chemical and biological agents, the index of the medium is going to be around 1.34, and in that case, the sensitivity of the sensor will be lower than the maximum achievable. However, we still have been able to successfully demonstrate detection of hybridization of target DNA with a complementary DNA and the results will be presented elsewhere [9]. IV. CONCLUSION
Fig. 5. Sensitivity for bers with different core diameters.

An evanescent eld ber grating sensor has been demonstrated where the change of index of the surrounding medium is detected by a shift in Bragg wavelength. The sensitivity of the sensor is increased appreciably by etching the core of the ber. A maximum sensitivity of 1394 nm/riu is achieved with a 3.4- m diameter core resulting in a resolvable index change assuming a resolvable wavelength change of of 0.01 nm obtained experimentally. This maximum sensitivity is achieved when the index of the surrounding medium is 1.44 and it decreases when the index decreases. The current sensitivity is limited by the resolution of the OSA. The sensitivity can be further improved by better signal processing techniques and is being currently pursued. The sensor can be used to detect chemical or biological changes in the surrounding medium. Multiple sensors can also be integrated on a single ber allowing for different detection scenarios. REFERENCES
[1] A. D. Kersey, M. A. Davis, H. J. Patrick, M. LeBlanc, K. P. Koo, C. G. Askins, M. A. Putnam, and E. J. Friebele, Fiber grating sensors, J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 15, no. 8, pp. 14421463, Aug. 1997. [2] K. O. Hill, Y. Fujii, D. C. Johnson, and B. S. Kawasaki, Photo-sensitivity in optical ber waveguides: Application to reection lter fabrication, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 32, pp. 647647, 1978. [3] G. Meltz, W. W. Morey, and J. R. Dunphy, Fiber Bragg grating chemical sensor, in Proc. SPIE 1587, Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Fiber Sensors III, 1991, pp. 350361. [4] V. Bhatia and A. M. Vengsarkar, Optical ber long-period grating sensors, Opt. Lett., vol. 9, no. 21, pp. 692694, 1996. [5] A. Asseh, S. Sandgren, H. Ahlfeldt, B. Sahlgren, R. Stubbe, and G. Edwall, Fiber optical Bragg grating refractometer, Fiber Integr. Opt., vol. 17, pp. 5162, 1998. [6] D. A. Pereira, O. Frazao, and J. L. Santos, Fiber Bragg grating sensing system for simultaneous measurement of salinity and temperature, Opt. Eng., vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 299304, 2004. [7] K. Schroeder, W. Ecke, R. Mueller, R. Willsch, and A. Andreev, A ber Bragg grating refractometer, Meas. Sci. Technol., vol. 12, pp. 757764, 2001. [8] M. Kohl, M. Cope, M. Essenpreis, and D. Bocker, Inuence of glucose concentration on light scattering in tissue-simulating phantoms, Opt. Lett., vol. 19, no. 24, Dec. 1994. [9] M. Dagenais, A. N. Chryssis, S. M. Lee, H. Yi, S. S. Saini, and W. Bentley, Highly sensitive ber Bragg grating biosensors, in Proc. SPIE, Optoelectronic Integrated Circuits IX, vol. 5729, L. A. Eldada and E.-H. Lee, Eds., 2005.

Fig. 6. Measurable change of index for sensors with different diameters. A 0.01-nm resolution of peak wavelength detection is assumed.

with diameters 4.0 and 3.4 m in Fig. 5. Theoretical calculations are also plotted in the gure. A maximum sensitivity of 1394 is achieved for a 3- m sensor which is at least four times larger than previously reported values [7]. The sensitivity of the sensor also increases as the diameter of the core is decreased. A good agreement is achieved between the theoretical and experimental values. To measure the value of the peak wavelength, an optical spectral analyzer was used with a resolution of 0.01 nm. can A minimum change of surrounding index of be resolved by the sensor with a diameter of 3.4 m, as shown in Fig. 6. This resolution is achieved when the index of the surrounding medium is 1.44. It should also be noted that the index sensitivity increases with reduced diameter and also as the surrounding index approaches that of the core index. The large value of the sensitivity obtained in the sensor can be used to measure small changes in index of the surrounding medium. This can be used to measure the presence of chemical or biological agents. For example, it has been shown that per mM of glucose is clinically an index change of acceptable [8]. With the present sensor, that corresponds to a