Fabricating Nanoporous Silica Structure on D-Fibres through Room Temperature Self-Assembly

John Canning; Lucas Moura; Lachlan Lindoy; Kevin Cook; Maxwell J Crossley; Yanhua Luo; Gang-Ding Peng; Lars Glavind; George Huyang; Masood Naqshbandi; Martin Kristensen; Cicero Martelli; Graham Town

doi:10.3390/ma7032356

Fabricating Nanoporous Silica Structure on D-Fibres through Room Temperature Self-Assembly

Materials (Basel). 2014 Mar 19;7(3):2356-2369. doi: 10.3390/ma7032356.

Authors

John Canning^{1

2}, Lucas Moura^{3

4}, Lachlan Lindoy⁵, Kevin Cook⁶, Maxwell J Crossley⁷, Yanhua Luo⁸, Gang-Ding Peng⁹, Lars Glavind¹⁰, George Huyang¹¹, Masood Naqshbandi¹², Martin Kristensen¹³, Cicero Martelli⁴, Graham Town¹⁴

Affiliations

¹ interdisciplinary Photonics Laboratories (iPL), School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. john.canning@sydney.edu.au.
² School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. john.canning@sydney.edu.au.
³ interdisciplinary Photonics Laboratories (iPL), School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. cmartelli@utfpr.edu.br.
⁴ Graduate School of Electrical Engineering and Applied Computer Science, Federal University of Technology-Paraná, Curitiba PR 80230-901, Brazil. cmartelli@utfpr.edu.br.
⁵ interdisciplinary Photonics Laboratories (iPL), School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. lplindoy@gmail.com.
⁶ interdisciplinary Photonics Laboratories (iPL), School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. kevin.cook@sydney.edu.au.
⁷ School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. maxwell.crossley@sydney.edu.au.
⁸ Photonics & Optical Communications, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. yanhua.luo1@unsw.edu.au.
⁹ Photonics & Optical Communications, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. g.peng@unsw.edu.au.
¹⁰ Department of Engineering, Finlandsgade 22, Aarhus University, Aarhus N 8200, Denmark. lagla@vestas.com.
¹¹ interdisciplinary Photonics Laboratories (iPL), School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. shhu2628@uni.sydney.edu.au.
¹² interdisciplinary Photonics Laboratories (iPL), School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. mnaq6951@uni.sydney.edu.au.
¹³ Department of Engineering, Finlandsgade 22, Aarhus University, Aarhus N 8200, Denmark. mk@eng.au.dk.
¹⁴ Department of Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. mnaq6951@uni.sydney.edu.au.

Abstract

The room temperature deposition of self-assembling silica nanoparticles onto D-shaped optical fibres ("D-fibre"), drawn from milled preforms fabricated by modified chemical vapour deposition (MCVD), is studied. Vertical dip-and-withdraw produces tapered layers, with one end thicker (surface coverage >0.85) than the other, whilst horizontal dip-and-withdraw produces much more uniform layers over the core region. The propagation of induced fracturing over the core region during drying is overcome using a simple protrusion of the inner cladding. Thick coatings are discernible through thin film interference colouring, but thinner coatings require scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging. Here, we show that fluorescence imaging, using Rhodamine B, in this example, can provide some qualitative and speedy assessment of coverage.

Keywords: biochemical; filters; lab-in-a-fibre; lab-on-fibre; microfibers; nanoparticles; nanoreactions; self-assembly; sensors.