Engineering metal oxide nanostructures for the fiber optic sensor platform.

This paper presents an effective integration scheme of nanostructured SnO2 with the fiber optic platform for chemical sensing applications based on evanescent optical interactions. By using a triblock copolymer as a structure directing agent as the means of nano-structuring, the refractive index of SnO2 is reduced from >2.0 to 1.46, in accordance with effective medium theory for optimal on-fiber integration. High-temperature stable fiber Bragg gratings inscribed in D-shaped fibers were used to perform real-time characterization of optical absorption and refractive index modulation of metal oxides in response to NH3 from the room temperature to 500 °C. Measurement results reveals that the redox reaction of the nanostructured metal oxides exposed to a reactive gas NH3 induces much stronger changes in optical absorption as opposed to changes in the refractive index. Results presented in this paper provide important guidance for fiber optic chemical sensing designs based on metal oxide nanomaterials.