Open AccessOptimization of light scattering enhancement by gold nanoparticles in fused silica optical fiber
Author(s) -
Xiang Wang,
Rinze Benedictus,
Roger M. Groves
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.427967
Subject(s) - materials science , optical fiber , colloidal gold , optics , refractive index , light scattering , fiber optic sensor , plastic clad silica fiber , nanoparticle , fiber , graded index fiber , plastic optical fiber , scattering , optoelectronics , nanotechnology , composite material , physics
A conventional distributed fiber optic sensing system offers close to linear sensitivity along the fiber length. However gold nanoparticles (NP) have been shown to be able to enhance the contrast ratio to improve the quality of signal detection. The challenge in improving the contrast of reflected signals is to optimise the nanoparticle doping concentration over the densed sensing length to make best use of the distributed fiber sensing hardware. In this paper, light enhancement by spherical gold NPs in the optical fibers was analyzed by considering the size-induced NP refractive index changes. This was achieved by building a new model to relate backscattered light from a gold NP suspension between the optical fiber end tips and backscattered light from gold NPs in the core of the optical fiber. The paper provides a model to determine the optimized sizes and concentrations of NPs for sensing at different desired penetration depths in the optical fiber.