Optical steelyard: high-resolution and wide-range refractive index sensing by synergizing Fabry–Perot interferometer with metafibers

Lei Zhang^{1, 2, 3},
Xinggang Shang^{2, 3},
Simin Cao⁴,
Qiannan Jia^{1, 2, 3},
Jiyong Wang⁵,
Wei Yan^{2, 3},
Min Qiu^{2, 3, 4}

1.
College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China
2.
Key Laboratory of 3D Micro/Nano Fabrication and Characterization of Zhejiang Province, School of Engineering, Westlake University, 18 Shilongshan RoadZhejiang Province, Hangzhou, 310024, China
3.
Institute of Advanced Technology, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, 18 Shilongshan RoadZhejiang Province, Hangzhou, 310024, China
4.
Westlake Institute for Optoelectronics, Fuyang, Hangzhou, 311421, China
5.
Ministry of Education Engineering Research Center of Smart Microsensors and Microsystems, School of Electronics and Information, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

Funds: The authors thank the Westlake Center for Micro/Nano Fabrication for facility support and technical assistance. L.Z. thanks W. Wang at the State Key Laboratory of Extreme Photonics and Instrumentation for assistance with FIB.

摘要

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Abstract: Refractive index (RI) sensors play an important role in various applications including biomedical analysis and food processing industries. However, developing RI sensors with both high resolution and wide linear range remains a great challenge due to the tradeoff between quality (Q) factor and free spectral range (FSR) of resonance mode. Herein, the optical steelyard principle is presented to address this challenge by synergizing resonances from the Fabry–Perot (FP) cavity and metasurface, integrated in a hybrid configuration form on the end facet of optical fibers. Specifically, the FP resonance acting like the scale beam, offers high resolution while the plasmonic resonance acting like the weight, provides a wide linear range. Featuring asymmetric Fano spectrum due to modal coupling between these two resonances, a high Q value (~ 3829 in liquid) and a sensing resolution (figure of merit) of 2664 RIU⁻¹ are experimentally demonstrated. Meanwhile, a wide RI sensing range (1.330–1.430 in the simulation and 1.3403–1.3757 in the experiment) is realized, corresponding to a spectral shift across several FSRs (four and two FSRs in the simulation and experiment, respectively). The proposed steelyard RI sensing strategy is promising in versatile monitoring applications, e.g., water salinity/turbidity and biomedical reaction process, and could be extended to other types of sensors calling for both high resolution and wide linear range.

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