Miniaturized fiber-optic surface-plasmon-resonance sensor

Abstract

A fiber-optic sensor for the detection of small refractive index changes is presented. The high sensitivity of the novel miniaturized sensor concept is achieved by exciting of surface plasmon waves with a single cladding mode using a longperiod fiber Bragg grating. This paper gives a brief description of the operating principle, design and fabrication of the sensor. Sensor performance is discussed on the basis of initial experiments.