Comparação entre duas técnicas de produção de sensores refratométricos a fibra óptica com nanoestruturas de ouro

Abstract

In this work were produced and characterized nanostructured devices based on long period fiber gratings, seeking for refractometric sensors with enhanced sensitivity in water environment. In order to increase the grating refractive index sensitivity to the surroundings, two deposition methods were used to form a gold nanoparticles film over the surface of the optical fiber containing the grating. A thermal route adapted from the literature was used with three LPGs, which were characterized before and after the nanostructures deposition. The nanoparticles film resulted in an increase of 85% in the grating sensitivity for refractive indexes close to the water one. This increased sensitivity was consequence of the coupling between the grating resonance and the nanoparticles localized surface plasmon resonance. Using nanoparticles produced by chemical route, gold nanoparticles film was formed by immersing the fiber in the nanoparticles. The influence of the immersion time was evaluated using a single long period grating immersed in the colloid for different time intervals. Increases in the grating sensitivity of 144.8% for refractive index of (1.4681 ± 0.0002) and up to 11.1% for refractive indexes close to the water were obtained with an immersion along 1 and 0.5 min, respectively.