Tapered Optical Fiber Sensor Coated with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Dye Sensing Application

Aleksandr A Polokhin; Yuri P Shaman; Pavel A Itrin; Ivan S Panyaev; Artem A Sysa; Sergey V Selishchev; Evgeny P Kitsyuk; Alexander A Pavlov; Alexander Yu Gerasimenko

doi:10.3390/mi14030579

Tapered Optical Fiber Sensor Coated with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Dye Sensing Application

Micromachines (Basel). 2023 Feb 28;14(3):579. doi: 10.3390/mi14030579.

Authors

Aleksandr A Polokhin¹, Yuri P Shaman², Pavel A Itrin³, Ivan S Panyaev³, Artem A Sysa², Sergey V Selishchev¹, Evgeny P Kitsyuk², Alexander A Pavlov⁴, Alexander Yu Gerasimenko^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Biomedical Systems, National Research University of Electronic Technology MIET, Shokin Square 1, 124498 Moscow, Russia.
² Scientific-Manufacturing Complex "Technological Centre", Shokin Square 1, bld. 7 off. 7237, 124498 Moscow, Russia.
³ S.P. Kapitsa Research and Technology Institute, Ulyanovsk State University, 42 Leo Tolstoy Str., 432017 Ulyanovsk, Russia.
⁴ Institute of Nanotechnology of Microelectronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospekt 32A, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
⁵ Institute for Bionic Technologies and Engineering, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street 2-4, 119991 Moscow, Russia.

Abstract

The present study aimed to improve the optical sensing performance of tapered optical fiber sensors toward aqueous Rhodamine B solution of different concentrations by applying single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). The functional coating was formed on the surface of the tapered optical fiber sensor using an aerosol layer-by-layer deposition method. Before deposition, the SWCNTs were processed with multistage liquid-phase treatment in order to form a stable dispersion. The effect of SWCNT treatment was investigated through Raman spectroscopy. The deposition of 220 layers caused a reduction of up to 60% of the initial optical power of radiation propagating through the optical fiber core. The optical fiber sensor coated with SWCNTs demonstrated significantly higher sensitivity compared to a non-coated sensor in the range of 2-32 mg/L of Rhodamine B concentration in an aqueous solution. The experimental results demonstrated that the sensitivity was increased 10 times from 32 (mg/L)^-1, for the non-coated sensor, up to 317 (mg/L)^-1 after SWCNT coating deposition. Moreover, the SWCNT-coated sensor demonstrated high repeatability that allowed for the evaluation of the concentration regardless of the previously analyzed dye concentration.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes; dye sensing; functional coating; tapered optical fiber.

Grants and funding

The research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation under grant agreement No. 075-15-2021-596 (Sechenov University).