Microfiber optical sensors: a review.

With diameter close to or below the wavelength of guided light and high index contrast between the fiber core and the surrounding, an optical microfiber shows a variety of interesting waveguiding properties, including widely tailorable optical confinement, evanescent fields and waveguide dispersion. Among various microfiber applications, optical sensing has been attracting increasing research interest due to its possibilities of realizing miniaturized fiber optic sensors with small footprint, high sensitivity, fast response, high flexibility and low optical power consumption. Here we review recent progress in microfiber optical sensors regarding their fabrication, waveguide properties and sensing applications.

All-fiber hybrid photon-plasmon circuits: integrating nanowire plasmonics with fiber optics.

We demonstrate all-fiber hybrid photon-plasmon circuits by integrating Ag nanowires with optical fibers. Relying on near-field coupling, we realize a photon-to-plasmon conversion efficiency up to 92% in a fiber-based nanowire plasmonic probe. Around optical communication band, we assemble an all-fiber resonator and a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with Q-factor of 6 × 10(6) and extinction ratio up to 30 dB, respectively.

Fast detection of humidity with a subwavelength-diameter fiber taper coated with gelatin film.

A subwavelength-diameter tapered optical fiber coated with gelatin layer for fast relative humidity (RH) sensing is reported. The sensing element is composed of a 680-nm-diameter fiber taper coated with a 80-nm-thickness 8-mm-length gelatin layer, and is operated at a wavelength of 1550 nm. When exposed to moisture, the change in refractive index of the gelatin layer changes the mode field of the guided mode of the coated fiber, and converts a portion of power from guided mode to radiation mode, resulting in RH-dependent loss for optical sensing.

Dispersion shifts in optical nanowires with thin dielectric coatings.

Based on exact solutions of Maxwell's equations of a 3-layer-structured cylindrical waveguide, we calculated dispersion shifts in thin-dielectric-coated optical nanowires. Typical parameters of silica and silicon nanowires are used for numerical simulations. It shows that, the dispersion of a nanowire waveguide can be made highly sensitive to the thickness and index of the coating layer, and a thin coat may lead to considerable dispersion shift of the guided light.

Photonic nanowires directly drawn from bulk glasses.

High-uniform nanowires with diameters down to 50 nm are directly taper-drawn from bulk glasses. Typical loss of these wires goes down to 0.1 dB/mm for single-mode operation.

Assembly of silica nanowires on silica aerogels for microphotonic devices.

We report on the assembly of low-loss silica nanowires into functional microphotonics devices on a low-index nondissipative silica aerogel substrate. Using this all-silica technique, we fabricated linear waveguides, waveguide bends, and branch couplers. The devices are significantly smaller than existing comparable devices and have low optical loss, indicating that the all-silica technique presented here has great potential for future applications in optical communication, optical sensing, and high-density optical integration.

Modeling of silica nanowires for optical sensing.

Based on evanescent-wave guiding properties of nanowire waveguides, we propose to use single-mode subwavelength-diameter silica nanowires for optical sensing. Phase shift of the guided mode caused by index change is obtained by solving Maxwell's equation, and is used as a criterion for sensitivity estimation. Nanowire sensor employing a wire-assembled Mach-Zehnder structure is modeled.

Single-mode guiding properties of subwavelength-diameter silica and silicon wire waveguides.

Single-mode optical wave guiding properties of silica and silicon subwavelength-diameter wires are studied with exact solutions of Maxwell's equations. Single mode conditions, modal fields, power distribution, group velocities and waveguide dispersions are studied. It shows that air-clad subwavelength-diameter wires have interesting properties such as tight-confinement ability, enhanced evanescent fields and large waveguide dispersions that are very promising for developing future microphotonic devices with subwavelength-width structures.

Subwavelength-diameter silica wires for low-loss optical wave guiding.

Silica waveguides with diameters larger than the wavelength of transmitted light are widely used in optical communications, sensors and other applications. Minimizing the width of the waveguides is desirable for photonic device applications, but the fabrication of low-loss optical waveguides with subwavelength diameters remains challenging because of strict requirements on surface roughness and diameter uniformity. Here we report the fabrication of subwavelength-diameter silica 'wires' for use as low-loss optical waveguides within the visible to near-infrared spectral range.

Highly Nd3+-doped Y3Al5O12 crystal fiber tip for laser thermotherapy.

Based on phonon relaxation, a 12-at. % neodymium-doped YAG (Y3AlrO12) crystal fiber tip has been developed for photothermal conversion. The near-cylindrical tip, with an average diameter of 0.