Protruding-shaped SiO2-microtip: from fabrication innovation to microphotonic device construction

Opt Lett. 2019 Jul 15;44(14):3514-3517. doi: 10.1364/OL.44.003514.

Abstract

In this Letter, we first proposed a new technology to prepare protruding-shaped SiO2-microtips (PSSMs): transient spinning technology (TST). By designing the operation steps and controlling the discharge parameters of a fiber splicing machine (Furukawa S178a), the protruding-shaped SiO2-microtips with different structural parameters can be fabricated simply, quickly, and efficiently. Two kinds of microtip photonic devices were designed: (1) a high-sensitivity gas refractive index Mach-Zehnder interferometer sensor based on the coned microtip and (2) an efficient LP11-mode selective exciter based on the lensed microtip. Furthermore, the PSSMs have more potential applications, such as optical fiber tweezers, optical fiber Raman probes, and scanning near-field optical microscopy.