Fiber-optic surface plasmon resonance for vapor phase analyses

Fiber-optic sensors based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) for direct refractive index (RI) measurements of samples with the RI between 1.00 and 1.30 are described. Most applications of SPR sensors are designed to function near the refractive index of water (1.3330 RI). The RI changes of aqueous solution (RI, ca. 1.34) can easily be monitored by silica-fiber (RI, 1.4601 at 550 nm) based SPR sensor. With regard to gas species detection, the fiber-optic SPR sensor must be modified for sensitivity to changes in refractive index near 1.0008 (i.e., RI of air). However, the silica waveguide has a prohibitively high RI for unmodified monitoring of the RI changes of gas. The silica-fiber based SPR probe design presented here is based upon the modification of the probe geometry to the ability to tune the SPR coupling wavelength/angle pair. In this study, the tapered silica-based fiber SPR sensors are shown to directly determine the RI changes of gas species and the density change of dry air.