Femtosecond-laser micromachining (also known as inscription or writing) has been developed as one of the most efficient techniques for direct three-dimensional microfabrication of transparent optical materials. In integrated photonics, by using direct writing of femtosecond/ultrafast laser pulses, optical waveguides can be produced in a wide variety of optical materials. With diverse parameters, the formed waveguides may possess different configurations. This paper focuses on crystalline dielectric materials, and is a review of the state-of-the-art in the fabrication, characterization and applications of femtosecond-laser micromachined waveguiding structures in optical crystals and ceramics. A brief outlook is presented by focusing on a few potential spotlights.

Optical waveguides in crystalline dielectric materials produced by femtosecond-laser micromachining

Xu-dong Wang*,† and Otto S. Wolfbeis*,‡ †Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, 200433 Shanghai, P. R. China ‡Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Chemoand Biosensors, University of Regensburg, D-93040 Regensburg, Germany ■ CONTENTS Books, Reviews, and Articles of General Interest 204 Sensors for (Dissolved) Gases and Vapors 204 Hydrogen 204 Hydrocarbons 206 Oxygen 206 Carbon Dioxide 208 Nitrogen Oxides 208 Other Gases 208 Ammonia 209 Ethanol 209 Other Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC)s 210 Sensors for Humidity, Water Fractions, Hydrogen Peroxide, and Hydrazine 211 Humidity 211 Water Fractions in Organic Solvents 212 Hydrogen Peroxide 213 Sensors for pH Values, Ions, and Salinity 213 pH Values 213 Ions 214 Salinity and Ionic Strength 215 Sensors for Organic Species 216 Glucose Sensing 216 Sucrose 217 Oils 217 Other Organics 217 Biosensors 218 Nucleic Acid-Based Biosensors (DNAand Aptamer-Based) 218 Immunosensors 218 Enzymatic Biosensors 219 Other Biosensors 220 New Schemes and Materials 220 New Sensing Schemes 220 Molecularly Imprinted Polymer (MIP)-Based Sensors 221 Photonic Crystals 223 Author Information 223 Corresponding Authors 223 Notes 223 Biographies 223 Acknowledgments 223 References 223

Fiber-Optic Chemical Sensors and Biosensors (2013-2015).

Optical fibers have been involved in the area of sensing applications for more than four decades. Moreover, interferometric optical fiber sensors have attracted broad interest for their prospective applications in sensing temperature, refractive index, strain measurement, pressure, acoustic wave, vibration, magnetic field, and voltage. During this time, numerous types of interferometers have been developed such as Fabry-Perot, Michelson, Mach-Zehnder, Sagnac Fiber, and Common-path interferometers. Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) fiber-optic sensors have been extensively investigated for their exceedingly effective, simple fabrication as well as low cost aspects. In this study, a wide variety of FPI sensors are reviewed in terms of fabrication methods, principle of operation and their sensing applications. The chronology of the development of FPI sensors and their implementation in various applications are discussed.

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/14/4/7451/pdf-vor

Chronology of Fabry-Perot interferometer fiber-optic sensors and their applications: a review.

Fibre Bragg grating (FBG) strain sensors are not only a very well-established research field, but they are also acquiring a bigger market share due to their sensitivity and low costs In this paper we review FBG strain sensors with high focus on the underlying physical principles, the interrogation, and the read-out techniques Particular emphasis is given to recent advances in highly-performing, single head FBG, a category FBG strain sensors belong to Different sensing schemes are described, including FBG strain sensors based on mode splitting Their operation principle and performance are reported and compared with the conventional architectures In conclusion, some advanced applications and key sectors the global fibre-optic strain sensors market are envisaged, as well as the main market players acting in this field

Fibre Bragg Grating Based Strain Sensors: Review of Technology and Applications.

DOI: 10.1002/adom.201801433 Scientific American selects plasmonic sensing as the top 10 emerging technologies of 2018.[15] Almost every single new plasmonic or photonic structure would be explored to test its sensing ability.[16–29] These works tend to report the sensing performance of their own structure. Some declare that their sensitivity breaks the world record. However, there is still a missing literature on what the world record really is, the gap between the experiments and the theoretical limit, as well as the differences between metal-based plasmonic sensors and dielectric-based photonic sensors. To push plasmonic and photonic sensors into industrial applications, an optical sensing technology map is absolutely necessary. This review aims to cover a wide range of most representative plasmonic and photonic sensors, and place them into a single map. The sensor performances of different structures will be distinctly illustrated. Future researchers could plot the sensing ability of their new sensors into this technology map and gauge their performances in this field. In this review, we focus on optical refractive index (RI) sensors with no fluorescent labeling required. We will utilize two parameters to characterize and compare the performance of optical RI sensors: sensitivity to RI change (denoted by symbol SRI) and figure of merit (in short, FoM). For simplicity, we restrict our discussions to bulk RI change, where the change in RI occurs within the whole sample. There is another case where the RI variation occurs only within a very small volume close to the sensor surface. This surface RI sensitivity is proportional to the bulk RI sensitivity, the ratio of the thickness of the layer within which the surface RI variation occurs, and the penetration depth of the optical mode.[6] The bulk RI sensitivity defines the ratio of the change in sensor output (e.g., resonance angle, intensity, or resonant wavelength) to the bulk RI variations. Here, we limit our discussions to the spectral interrogations and the bulk RI sensitivity SRI is given by[3,5–7,30]

Optical Refractive Index Sensors with Plasmonic and Photonic Structures: Promising and Inconvenient Truth

We report a compact fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer for refractive index sensing with high sensitivity and precise sensing location. One arm of the interferometer contains a microcavity formed by removing part of the fiber core near the core and cladding interface by femtosecond laser micromachining, and the other arm remains in line with the remaining part of the fiber core. Such a fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer exhibits an extremely high refractive-index-sensitivity of −9370 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) within the refractive index range between 1.31 and 1.335.

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Fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer fabricated by femtosecond laser micromachining for refractive index measurement with high sensitivity

We demonstrate a surface plasmon resonance refractive sensor based on the side-polished single mode optical fiber and investigated the sensor performance decay induced by silver coating degradation. The sensor showed fast response to the refractive index liquid in the range from 1.32 to 1.40 RIU. The highest sensitivity up to 4365.5 nm/RIU and a FOM of 51.61 RIU−1 were achieved, which were comparable to the reported polished-fiber-based SPR sensors. Characteristics of the silver-coated sensor after exposure to the air as well as to the liquid environment were investigated. The sensor always stored in dry air could respond stably two weeks later with sensitivity comparable with the fresh one and lower resolution due to the broadened resonant dip. But the sensor immersed in the refractive liquid for 30 min firstly and then exposed to ambient air for hours decayed dramatically due to silver degradation. The presented silver-coated SPR sensor could be used as a simple, cost-effective, disposable device in bio-chemical, environment, and food safety detection.

Surface plasmon resonance refractive sensor based on silver-coated side-polished fiber

The refractive index sensing characteristics of the side-polished photonic crystal fiber (PCF) surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor are detailed investigated in this paper. We used the finite element method (FEM) to study the influences of the side-polished depth, air hole size, lattice constant, and the refractive index (RI) of the PCF material on sensing performance. The simulation results show that the side-polished depth, air hole size, lattice pitch have significant influence on the coupling strength between core mode and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), but have little influence on sensitivity; the coupling strength and sensitivity will significant increase with the decrease of RI of the PCF material. The sensitivity of the D-shaped PCF sensor is obtained to be as high as 21700 nm/RIU in the refractive index environment of 1.33-1.34, when the RI of the PCF material is controlled at 1.36. It revealed a new method of making ultra-high sensitivity SPR fiber sensor. Then we experimental demonstrated a SPR refractive sensor based on the side-polished single mode PCF and investigated the sensing performance. The experimental results of the plasmon resonance wavelength sensitivity agree well with the theoretical results. The presented gold-coated D-shaped PCF SPR sensor could be used as a simple, cost-effective, high sensitivity device in bio-chemical detection.

Surface plasmon resonance biosensor based on gold-coated side-polished hexagonal structure photonic crystal fiber.

A new method of selectively infiltrating microstructured optical fibers with the assistance of femtosecond laser micromachining is presented. With this technique, any type of air-holes in the cross-section of the microstructured optical fibers can be selectively infiltrated with liquids, which opens up a highly efficient, precise, flexible and reliable way of selective infiltrating and has high potential in the fabrication of novel hybrid-structured optical fibers and the devices based on them.

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Femtosecond laser-assisted selective infiltration of microstructured optical fibers.

An elegant way of achieving an ultracompact optical fiber in-line Mach–Zehnder interferometer is to create an inner air cavity in a section of microfiber. The sandwich structure splits the light propagating in the fiber into two beams: one passes through the inner air cavity and the other travels along the silica wall of the cavity before recombining at the cavity end, resulting in an interference fringe pattern. Such a device is applied for strain measurement with a high sensitivity of 6.8  pm/μe.

/pdf/microfiber-in-line-mach-zehnder-interferometer-for-strain-2brkpg74dg.pdf

Ying Wang

Papers

Fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer fabricated by femtosecond laser micromachining for refractive index measurement with high sensitivity

Surface plasmon resonance refractive sensor based on silver-coated side-polished fiber

Surface plasmon resonance biosensor based on gold-coated side-polished hexagonal structure photonic crystal fiber.

Femtosecond laser-assisted selective infiltration of microstructured optical fibers.

Microfiber in-line Mach–Zehnder interferometer for strain sensing