Comparative Studies on Sensitivity and Stability of Fiber-optic Oxygen Sensor Using Several Cladding Polymers

Abstract

An attempt has been made to improve the sensitivity and stability of the polymer optical fiber (POF) sensor for continuous monitoring of gaseous oxygen. It utilizes the quenching phenomenon of cladding fluorescence. Three polymers namely, poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate) (PCMA), poly(l-menthyl methacrylate) (PMtMA) and poly(4-methyl-1-pentene), which have a relatively large oxygen permeability, were used as cladding layer doped with a sensitive dye such as a 9,10-diphenyl anthracene (DPA), on the polymer cores with 1 mm diameter. When these sensor heads were pumped using a D2-lamp, the response at the fluorescence of λ=431 nm was found to be very fast and reversible in all the cases, for oxygen concentrations ranging from 0.5% to 100%. However, the differences in fluorescence quenching rate, stability and response time were observed to be dependent upon the polymer used. In particular, the PCMA sample showed good long-term stability. These comparative studies of POF oxygen sensors seem to be useful for developing practical devices.

Optimization of All-Polymer Optical Fiber Oxygen Sensors with Antenna Dyes and Improved Solvent Selection Using Hansen Solubility Parameters

“…The 1990s and 2000s saw a few contributions to the field of POF oxygen sensing. Notably by Morisawa et al [4], Toba et al [5], Chu and Lo [6] and Chu et al [7]. Of these, only Morisawa et al used a polymer matrix coated onto the fiber.…”

Experimental investigation of the effect of polymer matrices on polymer fibre optic oxygen sensors and their time response characteristics using a vacuum testing chamber and a liquid flow apparatus

“…To improve the overall signal to noise (S/N) ratio of the detectable luminescent light, several reported studies have focused on using large-diameter, polymer type optical fibres (e.g. PMMA) for oxygen sensing [18] , [19] , which due to their larger surface area, provide improved S/N performance and are also suitable for invasive medical applications due to their inherent robustness when compared with standard silica fibres. Tapered-tip polymer fibre based oxygen sensors have also been investigated [20] , [21] .…”

Sol-Gel Derived Complex Sensing Membranes for Detection of Oxygen

“…Fiber optic gas sensors (FOGS) have many advantages such as high accuracy, immunity from the disturbance of electric and magnetic fields, long life time, low cost and they have been studied all over the world. One kind of FOGS is the fluorescence quenching-based oxygen sensor(FQOS) which can be widely used in many fields and more and more studies on FQOS have been reported [1][2][3].One of the key procedures of developing high-performance FQOS is the immobilization of indicators. Sol-gel method is one of the common immobilization methods.…”