Dynamic response of tapered optical multimode fiber coated with carbon nanotubes for ethanol sensing application

Arafat Shabaneh; Saad Girei; Punitha Arasu; Mohd Mahdi; Suraya Rashid; Suriati Paiman; Mohd Yaacob

doi:10.3390/s150510452

Dynamic response of tapered optical multimode fiber coated with carbon nanotubes for ethanol sensing application

Sensors (Basel). 2015 May 4;15(5):10452-64. doi: 10.3390/s150510452.

Authors

Arafat Shabaneh^{1

2}, Saad Girei^{3

4}, Punitha Arasu^{5

6}, Mohd Mahdi^{7

8}, Suraya Rashid⁹, Suriati Paiman¹⁰, Mohd Yaacob^{11

12}

Affiliations

¹ Wireless and Photonics Network Research Centre, Engineering and Technology Complex, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. tamimi_127@hotmail.com.
² Photonics Laboratory, Department of Computer & Communications Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. tamimi_127@hotmail.com.
³ Wireless and Photonics Network Research Centre, Engineering and Technology Complex, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. gireisaad3@gmail.com.
⁴ Photonics Laboratory, Department of Computer & Communications Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. gireisaad3@gmail.com.
⁵ Wireless and Photonics Network Research Centre, Engineering and Technology Complex, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. punitha_arasu@yahoo.com.
⁶ Photonics Laboratory, Department of Computer & Communications Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. punitha_arasu@yahoo.com.
⁷ Wireless and Photonics Network Research Centre, Engineering and Technology Complex, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. mam@upm.edu.my.
⁸ Photonics Laboratory, Department of Computer & Communications Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. mam@upm.edu.my.
⁹ Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43300 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. suraya_ar@upm.edu.my.
¹⁰ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. suriati@upm.edu.my.
¹¹ Wireless and Photonics Network Research Centre, Engineering and Technology Complex, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. hanif@upm.edu.my.
¹² Photonics Laboratory, Department of Computer & Communications Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. hanif@upm.edu.my.

Abstract

Ethanol is a highly combustible chemical universally designed for biomedical applications. In this paper, optical sensing performance of tapered multimode fiber tip coated with carbon nanotube (CNT) thin film towards aqueous ethanol with different concentrations is investigated. The tapered optical multimode fiber tip is coated with CNT using drop-casting technique and is annealed at 70 °C to enhance the binding of the nanomaterial to the silica fiber tip. The optical fiber tip and the CNT sensing layer are micro-characterized using FESEM and Raman spectroscopy techniques. When the developed sensor was exposed to different concentrations of ethanol (5% to 80%), the sensor reflectance reduced proportionally. The developed sensors showed high sensitivity, repeatability and fast responses (<55 s) towards ethanol.