Water Pollution Fiber Sensor Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance Technique; Implementation and Characterization

Abstract

In this work, a single fiber optic fiber was developed as a water pollution sensor based on the Surface Plasmon Resonance Phenomenon based upon the Mach - Zehender Interferometry (MZI) technology. The sensor submitted was developed to detect water pollutants. The SPR sensors were prepared by coating a golden metallic film which thickness 42 nm on a chemically etched single-mode fiber with a thickness of 20 micrometers, which achieved the best results of sensitivity to water pollution, the results of the high sensitivity of the optical fiber sensor were obtained based on the surface plasmon resonance phenomenon. The experimental results showed high sensitivity, reaching 1315 pm/mol.l−1 for a salty solution with distilled water, 1705 pm/mol.l−1 for the salty solution with tap water, as well as 2222 pm/mol.l−1 for sugar solution with distilled water, and 1925 pm/mol.l−1 for sugar solution with tap water. This means that these sensors which are based on SPR could be very useful in the field of water pollution detection.