In-situ background-free Raman probe using double-cladding anti-resonant hollow-core fibers

Shufan Luan; Si Chen; Xinyue Zhu; Dakun Wu; Fei Yu; Junjiang Hu; Chunlei Yu; Lili Hu

doi:10.1364/BOE.517625

In-situ background-free Raman probe using double-cladding anti-resonant hollow-core fibers

Biomed Opt Express. 2024 Feb 16;15(3):1709-1718. doi: 10.1364/BOE.517625. eCollection 2024 Mar 1.

Authors

Shufan Luan^{1

2}, Si Chen^{1

3}, Xinyue Zhu¹, Dakun Wu², Fei Yu^{1

2

4}, Junjiang Hu¹, Chunlei Yu^{1

2}, Lili Hu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Materials for High Power Laser, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China.
² Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou 310024, China.
³ chensi@siom.ac.cn.
⁴ yufei@siom.ac.cn.

Abstract

This study presents the development of an in-situ background-free Raman fiber probe, employing two customized double-cladding anti-resonant hollow-core fibers (AR-HCFs). The Raman background noise measured in the AR-HCF probe is lower than that of a conventional multi-mode silica fiber by two orders of magnitude. A plug-in device for fiber coupling optics was designed that was compatible with a commercially available confocal Raman microscope, enabling in-situ Raman detection. The numerical aperture (NA) of both AR-HCF claddings exceeds 0.2 substantially enhancing the collection efficiency of Raman signals at the distal end of the fiber probe. The performance of our Raman fiber probe is demonstrated by characterizing samples of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plastics, alumina ceramics, and ethylene glycol solution.