Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 22,5 (2000) pp.

431457

Plastic optical bre sensors and devices

Rebecca J. Bartlett, Rekha Philip-Chandy, Piers Eldridge, David F. Merchant, Roger Morgan and Patricia J. Scully
School of Engineering, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

This paper considers the impact of recent developments in polymer optical bre (POF) and its application in optical bre sensors and optical measurement. A discussion of techniques developed for POF-based sensors and devices, and their applications includes sensors to measure ow, biolm growth, turbidity, toxicity, humidity, rotation and uorescence. Techniques to photoinduce refractive index changes and physical gratings into POF, and chemically to remove the cladding and taper plastic optical bres are described, along with the use of uorescent dye-doped plastic optical bres (FPOF) in sensors and devices. Key words: environmental measurement; ow; uorescence; multimode; optical bre sensor; particle concentration; polymer optical bre; polymethylmethacrylate; turbidity.

1. Introduction Plastic optical bres (POF) are large diameter, exible and durable multimode bres made from polymers, including polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), polystyrene, polycarbonates and peruorinated materials. POF suffers from a cheap and cheerful image; typically POF bre has a 1-mm diameter core and 20- m cladding, costs about 50p a metre, can be cut with a scalpel or hot knife, and
Address for correspondence: Patricia J. Scully, School of Engineering, Liverpool John Moores University, Byrom Street, Liverpool L3 3AF, UK. E-mail: p.j.scully livjm.ac.uk

2000 The Institute of Measurement and Control

0142-3312(00)TM029OA

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polished using abrasive papers or metal polish. POF connectors and device housings can be made out of plastic. Once the poor cousin of silica bre, POFs cheapness, ease of termination and robustness is rapidly increasing its credibility for local area networks (LANs), etc., as new graded index POF bres become available (Polishuk, 1998), and advances in materials and manufacturing increase the POF bandwidth up to Gbits per second and reduce losses down to 10 dB/km (Kalish and Clayton, 1997). POF was developed in 1968 by the US company Dupont, who sold the patents to Mitsubishi Rayon, and since then, POF technology has developed in Japan, with recent rapid advances being made in reducing attenuation and increasing bandwidth for telecommunications applications. It is expected that as POF becomes more widely accepted and its market share increases, its advantages in ease of preparation and termination, and easy coupling to detectors and emitters, together with the low cost of terminations and devices, will make it highly attractive for sensing applications, particularly where throw-away, rugged front ends are required. The success of POF has led to a number of reviews of its telecomms applications in trade magazines (Berman, 1998; Polishuk, 1998) and a book aimed at technicians (Club des Fibres Optiques Plastiques, 1997). POF is emerging as the new standard for LAN cabling because the installation cost of POF is less than either copper or glass, although its material cost falls directly between the cost of high-speed copper and glass (Berman, 1998). POF has several advantages over glass bre as far as sensing applications are concerned, in that a number of enabling technologies have made it possible signicantly and easily to enhance the performance of POF for sensors, using simple and inexpensive techniques and equipment, compared with those required for glass. The only review in the literature of sensing applications is a brief trade magazine article by Graydon (1998), which deals solely with the sensors developed at Liverpool John Moores University, and consequently a more comprehensive review was felt to be necessary. The topics covered in this paper include a discussion of conventional POF bre for communications and dye-doped POF. Sensors based on conventional POF are briey described, followed by a detailed treatment of sensors based on dye-doped POF. Enabling technologies that allow POF to be sensitized to various measurands or have its optical and physical properties modied to enhance its performance, are then detailed. These include evanescent eld modulation by use of a chemically stripped POF core exposed to the measurand (Chandy and Scully, 1998); core electric eld modulation in a double-cladded inverse W highlowhigh refractive index-proled POF bre, using tunnelling ray resonance (Zhang et al., 1996); and grooving of bres (Philip-Chandy et al., 1999). Refractive index proling is obtained by dip-coating the stripped or cladded bre with optical epoxy or solgels of dened refractive index (Zhang et al., 1996). Fluorescent core-doped POF has been used for various sensor applications (Poisel et al., 1994; Klein et al., 1996; Chandy et al., 1998; Merchant et al., 1998). Physical surface and Bragg gratings have been successfully photoinduced into the distal ends, sides and core of doped and undoped plastic optical bres and preforms, using laser radiation at various ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths (Schmitt et al., 1996; Peng et al., 1999), and techniques for chemical tapering of POF have been developed (Merchant et al., 1999).

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The sensors described in this review are in the research prototype stage and have not been manufactured in quantity. 2. Types of POF bre The new types of POF emerging in the market-place demonstrate its commercial viability and encourage the marketing of POF connectors and associated optoelectronic devices, enabling POF-based sensor systems to be constructed easily and cheaply. Thus a discussion of POF types and their impact on sensors is instructive. 2.1 POF for communications New types of POF have emerged in the race to reduce attenuation and increase bandwidth for telecomms applications. A discussion of the properties of telecomms POF is important when considering its use for sensors and measurement, because the large market and high volume manufacture driven by the burgeoning communications industry ensures longevity in the market-place, and enables POF bre and components to be affordable for sensors and control applications. Key developments are listed as follows: in 1992, Yoshiro Koike developed graded index POF (GIPOF), and demonstrated a 1 Gbit/s capability over 30 m using a light-emitting diode (LED), and 2.5 Gbit/s transmission at 100 m using a laser diode. Reseachers at Keio University in Japan developed a deuterated PMMA bre with losses of 20 dB/km and predict a theoretical attenuation limit at 1.3 and 1.5 m of 0.25 and 0.2 dB/km respectively, comparable to that of silica bre (Koike, 1998). Step index POF with a numerical aperture of 0.3 has demonstrated 155 Mbit/s transmission over 100 m. In 1995, Koike developed peruorinated GIPOF using a Teon-type uoropolymer called CYTOP, with low absorption from visible wavelengths to 1300 nm (50 dB/km), enabling light sources and detectors developed for silica bre to be used with peruorinated POF. A bandwidth of 1 GHz is anticipated for CYTOP bre. Such improvements in POF performance in the telecommunications sector enhance sales and reduce the cost of POF components and enable it to be commercially viable for sensing applications as well. To prove that POF is a serious contender, various countries are implementing POF schemes and networks. As part of the US government commitment to develop technologies strategically important to the US military and industry, the High Speed Plastic Network (HSPN) was established to develop GIPOF technology. HSPN included Boeing, Honeywell, Hewlett Packard and Boston Optical Fibre (BOF) and worked for 3 years to bring POF technologies to the aerospace, automotive and datacomms marketplace. The experience gained and the technology developed by HSPN members enabled the passage of the rst POF industry standard set in May 1997. POF-based LANs were developed by General Motors (US), Mercedes Benz (Germany) and Toyota (Japan). Boeing are considering POF for in-ight communications and entertainment for aircraft (Polishuk, 1998). European POF

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activity takes place mainly in France and Germany. The Association of German Electrical Engineers (VDE) formed a POF subcommittee from members from the communications, automotive, cable and components industries as well as universities and research institutes (Ziemann et al., 1997). In France, a plastic optical bres club was established to promote industrial development of POF. POF devices in the research stage for telecomms and computer applications include WDM (wavelength division multiplexing; Uehara and Mizusawa, 1998), twodimensional array interconnects to VCSEL arrays (Neyer and Johnck, 1997) and GRIN (graded index) lenses have been made from GIPOF (Uodu and Hirota, 1998). The upper temperature limits of POF are important for industrial measurement and control applications and have been well documented for communications applications. Conventional POF is limited to 85C maximum, and when exposed to temperatures higher than this, the core polymer oxidizes (Hadjiloucas et al., 1996), creating a transmission loss. Conventional POF undergoes spectral changes in the UV and blue part of the spectrum (370490 nm) due to ageing, which are insignicant for short lengths of bre (1.5 m), but create a problem for lengths of 5 m or more. Accelerated ageing tests were performed for step-index POF equivalent to environmental effects of temperature and humidity over 1015 years (Daum et al., 1997), and it was found that the spectral changes induced affected the transmission of green light for trafc control. Considerable effort is being invested in production of POF which can withstand higher temperatures. Heat-resistant POF with thermoplastic resin for the core and silicone elastomer for the cladding was developed by the Furukawa Electric Company in Japan, and exhibits a transmission loss of just 0.2 dB/m after 500 h of exposure to temperatures of 80C and 95% relative humidity (RH). Futjitsu have manufactured polymer bres using ARTON, which are stable up to 150C, and GIPOF bre doped with triphenyl phosphate (TPP) demonstrate high thermal stability at high humidity (80C, 80% RH; Ishigure et al., 1997). Fibre refractive index proles were stable at 85C over 5000 h. New dopants for GIPOF under investigation with Tg (glass transition temperatures) greater than 90C and high humidities of 80% RH, are stable after 600700 h. The properties of POF that are increasing its popularity and competiveness for telecomms are exactly those that are important for optical measurement, sensors and devices, and also for control applications where POF is merely acting as a conduit for information in the same way as a telecommunications bre. 2.2 Dye-doped POF In recent years, the incorporation of dyes into solid state materials has enabled development of various optoelectronic devices ranging from tunable lasers and ampliers to nonlinear optical devices such as switches and modulators. These devices have applications in optical communications, photonics, material science, medicine and optical spectroscopy. Usually organic laser dyes are used, which have the advantages of high and fast nonlinearities, high quantity efciency and broad spectral range. PMMA doped with such dyes has advantages over its silica-

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based counterparts in that it has better efciency, beam quality and superior optical homogeneity than ORMOSIL (dye-doped organically modied silicates). Further advantages of dye-doped POF include the fact that a wide range of organic materials can be incorporated as dye molecules due to POFs low processing temperature. Silica bres are manufactured at temperatures in the range 18002100C, making it impossible to dope organics into them. Optical nonlinear organic dyes begin to deteriorate at 300500C, but these temperatures are above the manufacturing temperature range of POF, enabling the incorporation of such dyes into POF during manufacture. Fluorescent-doped polymer bre (FPOF) was developed in the late 1980s (Blumenfeld et al., 1986; 1987), originally for measurement of nuclear radiation by the French Atomic Commission. Fluorescent POF is available with a uorescent dye doping the core or the cladding. Cladding-doped FPOF is not available commercially but has been manufactured in research laboratories for specic experiments and applications (Muto et al., 1989). Core-doped FPOF is commercially available in a range of dopants and with circular or square cross section, and can be manufactured to specic requirements, by various commercial and research sources such as Optectron, France; Tven Polymer Optical Fibre Scientic Production Association, USSR and Poly-Optical, USA. The application of core-doped FPOF has been extended into the area of highvoltage discharges (Destruel et al., 1992), high-energy particle scintillators (Barni et al., 1996), optical ampliers (Tagaya et al., 1995a,b), physical sensors and decorative lighting and displays. There is little data on the temperature stability of commercial core-doped FPOF, but dye-doped bres manufactured at Tver Research Production Centre for POF in Russia were assessed for temperature and ageing, and exhibited small effects. When FPOF samples were temperature cycled from 10 to 70C, the intensity of transmitted light at peak absorption or emission wavelengths changed by 5% but shifts in the peak absorption and emission wavelengths were not detected. However, when exposed to sunlight, the absorption and emission spectra of certain dye-doped FPOFs shifted to longer wavelengths (Klein et al., 1996). Work on laboratory-produced dye-doped POFs for optoelectronic devices commenced in the early 1990s. Kuzuk et al. (1991), produced POFs doped with various dye molecules and demonstrated highly nonlinear optical effects. Tagaya et al. (1995a,b) created active POF with laser dyes as dopants. Peng et al. (1994), worked on POF with -carotene as the dopant for all-optical switching and laser dyes as dopants for optical bre amplication. Dye-doped polymeric devices formed into POF have advantages over their waveguide or bulk optic counterpart, in that useful and usually weak effects can accumulate over long distances to build up a total effect, due to the conned core area and long interacting lengths. Applications include all-optical switching and optical amplication. Bulk polymer hosts impregnated with a certain dye have achieved 80% conversion efciency from pump power to signal power with a tuning range close to that in solution (Hermes, 1994). Dye-doped POFs can be formed into useful bre ampliers and lasers that operate at wavelengths other than the 1300 and 1550 nm used in silica-based bre lasers. Laser dyes used to dye-dope POF included rhodamine 6G, rhodamine B, pyrromethane 650 and uorescein. Innovative

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devices have been designed based on single-mode core dye-doped POF bres incorporating embedded electrodes (Welker et al., 1998), in which the electrodes are used to polarize the dye-doped core to give second-order susceptibility. 3. Sensors based on conventional plastic optical bres Sensors using classical, commercial (undoped or unmodied step-index PMMA) POF have been developed over the last 15 years and are based on ideas already used in silica glass sensors, but exploiting the rugged and cheap nature of POF for harsh environments and throw-away sensors. An example of this technology transfer is a displacement sensor, developed by Ioannides et al. (1996), based on an array of three POF bres, with the centre bre emitting light that is reected from a mirror surface and captured by two outer bres, whose distal ends are positioned at different distances from the mirror. The range of the sensor extends to 100 mm with an accuracy of 1%. A respiratory plethysmograph for use in a magnetic resonance (MR) scanner (Raza and Augousti, 1995), exploits the well known modulation mechanism of microbending by measuring the intensity changes when a loop of POF is caused to expand and contract in sympathy with the ribcage. A goniometer for monitoring limb position in a MR scanner via a 40-m bre-optic link, was developed by Scully et al. (1993), where the POF was used to transfer light to and from an angled cylindrical rotating glass wedge modulator. The goniometer had an angular range of 90, with an average resolution of 2 , and long-term accuracy of 1, which is the specied accuracy for the physiological application. The advantage of POF in a medical environment is that the bre can withstand rough handling by medical staff, and can easily be replaced if broken by in-house technicians, as well as having the usual advantages of immunity to electromagnetic interference, intrinsic safety and chemical immunity. Hadjiloucas et al. (1996), developed a sensor for monitoring water uptake by plants. Again this was based on ideas from glass bre sensor technology; a transmitting and reecting bre cut at optimum angles monitored the light reected from a meniscus in order to measure its position, to give an indication of water uptake by a plant to a resolution of 2.5 109 l. The advantage of POF in this case is that it is easy to polish and cut to dened angles. The same sensor was used to monitor the reectivity of a mirror surface as a function of condensation, as part of a condensation dewpoint hygrometer. Steiger (1998) describes the use of standard POF for a variety of applications including mechanical pressure (microbending), gas and liquid pressure, liquid level sensor (evanescent eld sensing), radius (bending) sensor, stress, thermal switch and rotation sensor, and colour detector. Niewisch (1997) describes POF sensors for measuring the level of LN2, detecting nitrogen bubbles and for quench detection applied to the challenging environment of a high-temperature superconducting fault current limiter. The sensors were required to perform at temperatures as low as 77 K, have immunity to temperature variation between 77 and 300 K, be unaffected by voltages up to 420 kV, and to be mechanically robust and cheap. The principle of the quench detector was to measure a voltage generated

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across a superconducting current limiter when short circuited by using the current to illuminate LEDs. The light from the LEDs was transmitted through a length of POF to a detector and the reaction time was 350 s compared with 1 ms using electromechanical elements. The bubble detector and liquid level sensor were based on measurement of refractive index changes at the end of a cut length of bre. Telecomms devices based on classical POF include a 1 to N POF coupler (Faugeras et al., 1998) and a POF active coupler utilizing the ability to control the attenuation properties of liquid crystals to perform switching functions in response to an applied electric eld (Irusta et al., 1997). 4. Sensors using dye-doped plastic optical bres 4.1 Cladding dye-doped FPOF sensors Cladding-doped FPOF enables light emitted at the excitation wavelength in the vicinity of the cladding, to generate uorescent light that is coupled into the core and propagated along to the end of the bre for detection. To date, claddingdoped FPOF is not available commercially and has to be manufactured in the laboratory. This mechanism has been exploited by doping the cladding of POF with uorescein, which has a uorescence spectrum susceptible to humidity. The intensity of uorescent light is proportional to the humidity of the air surrounding the bre. The uorescein is excited by a HeCd laser of wavelength 441 nm (Muto et al., 1989; 1990; 1994), and measured using a band-pass lter and photomultiplier tube to an accuracy of 3% RH over a range of 585% RH. Response time is less than 1 s. Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) developed a sensor based on the same principles but using a cheap blue LED as light source, and silicon photodetector (Hasseinibalim, 1997), with a range of 894% RH, accuracy of 1.6% and sensitivity of 2 nW/% RH. The work performed by Muto used bre manufactured by an in-house bre extrusion facility, but at LJMU the cladding-doped bre was prepared in the laboratory by stripping step-index POF (described in section 5.2) and then painting the stripped core with an aqueous solution of sodium uorescein (uranine) which was allowed to dry in air. However, the salt aked off the bre surface. A more robust sensor was developed using sodium uorescein salt added to an optical epoxy which was applied to the stripped bre. Morisawa and Muto (1998) have cladded an ARTON bre core with tetrophenylporphine (TTP) dye-doped polymer. When pumped using a HeCd blue laser, uorescence took place proportional to the oxygen concentration for both gaseous and dissolved oxygen. The response time of the sensor was 2.5 min, and it demonstrated a linear calibration curve in the range 010 mg/l of dissolved oxygen. The device could detect up to 100 ppm of oxygen with 0.01% resolution. 4.2 Sensors based on commercial core dye-doped FPOF Exciting developments in sensor technology are possible with commercial core dye-doped FPOF. The cheapness of the bre (23/m) and ease of termination enables innovative but cheap and disposable sensors to be constructed.

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Commercially produced FPOF has been applied to a number of physical sensors such as a slip ring by researchers at Nuremburg (Poisel et al., 1994; 1997). FPOF was used to detect the data transmitted from an LED rotating round a circular axis, by shaping it to an annular ring of radius 1.25 m, as shown in Figure 1. The bandwidth is limited by the uorescence lifetime of the dye contained within the FPOF, which was about 7 ns giving a system bandwidth of up to 155 MHz. The angular position of the light source could be measured to an accuracy of 1%. Conventional mechanical sliprings consist of electrically conductive metal rings and contact brushes, and transmission rate is limited to 5 Mbit/s. Abrasive wear leads to a limited lifetime, and time-consuming maintenance. The researchers developed a three-colour sensor using circles of FPOF core doped with three different types of uorescent dye to cover a spectral range of 320720 nm. This was used to measure the emission spectrum of different broad-band light continuouswave (cw) and pulsed light sources (Klein et al., 1996). Other sensors based on commercial FPOF include an ambient light detector, optical potentiometer, optical position detector and intruder detector (Laguesse, 1993). Grattan and Kalymnios (1998), describe the possibility of doping POF with temperature-sensitive uorescent dyes and measuring their decay-time. An optical bre dipstick has been developed by Augousti et al. (1990), based on a green uorescent POF bre doped with commercial organic dye and dipped into a liquid. The intensity of uorescence guided along the bre was used as a measure of the depth of the liquid in which the bre was placed. 4.3 FPOF distributed photodetectors The use of commercial FPOF has been demonstrated as distributed photodetectors, with a spectral response dened by the absorption spectrum, and as wavelength shifters, leading to applications in spectroscopy and spectrouorimetry, negating the need for gratings and diffractive elements (Merchant et al., 1998). Together with diffuse, wraparound light sources such as electroluminescent lms, the distributed detecting properties of uorescent POF have enabled turbidity measurement by multiangle illumination and detection of light scattered from particles in aqueous suspension (Chandy et al., 1998).

Figure 1 Optical bre slip ring Source: Poisel et al. (1994)

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The sensors exploit the FPOF as follows: the core of the FPOF acts to redirect light incident through the side walls of the bre into guided light along the core six times more efciently than conventional bres. The combination of FPOF injector and POF link to a photodetector forms an extended cylindrical optodetector. The absorption spectrum of the dopant is selected preferentially to detect the wavelength of light scattered by or emitted by the uid under test and reject any stray light. An example of an application of this arrangement to measure the uorescence of a liquid is discussed in section 4.4. 4.4 Fluorimeter The sensor comprises a transparent cylindrical tube through which the water under investigation is continually pumped. An electroluminescent lm (ELF) surrounds the exterior surface of the tube at one end as an excitation source. An array of FPOFs is embedded into the exterior tube wall some distance from the lm (Figure 2). The ELF is chosen to emit a wavelength range matched to the application. Films are available commercially from 400 to 800 nm in broad band (60100 nm bandwidth), or multiband white spectra (Ono, 1995). They are low-power (several mW per cm2 ), cool, and emit a uniform omnidirectional ux. The planar

Figure 2 Schematic of optical bre uorimeter (courtesy of D.F. Merchant)

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construction of the ELF gives optimal sensor performance, in that its large surface area contact offers uniform illumination over the maximum volume of the tube. Light generated by the light source is not internally reected when it passes through the tube due to symmetry. If it is redirected while passing through the water, it may be converted into a guided ray and thus propagate along the tube (Figure 3). This may be due to scattering (turbidity) or uorescence events. If scattered, the wavelength of the re-directed ray is unchanged. If generated by uorescence, the ray is shifted to a longer wavelength. The light is conned within the outer tube walls and so can interact with the embedded optical bres and excite modes within them. The end section of these bres is doped with a uorescent material (FPOF) to enhance this coupling by efciently converting light passing into the bres through the sides into guided modes (Figure 4). The separation of uorescent light from the excitation signal is provided by selective wave-guiding of the uorescence within the tube walls. No optical lters, gratings or selective detectors are required making the sensor inexpensive, reliable and versatile. The absorption spectrum of the FPOF dopant is selected to preferentially detect the uorescent light wavelengths of the uid under test and reject any stray light from the excitation source. By appropriate choice of and positioning of FPOFs, the device can measure both uorescence and colour in terms of broadband (50200 nm) wavelength absorption without recourse to separate and lossy optical wavelength lters or dispersive elements, and can also measure turbidity. Using pure (single parameter) samples the sensor has been shown to measure: 1) uorescence: 0.2 ppb up to 100 ppm uorescein sodium (uranine) concentration (Figure 5). Linear from 0.2 ppb to 80 ppm with resolution of 0.15 ppb for samples up to 1 ppm and sensitivity of 13 nW/ppm with accuracy of 0.6 ppb at 10 ppb. Long-term drift was less than 4% in 12 months; 2) turbidity: 0.1 to 500 FTU. Linear from 0.1 to 100 FTU (Figure 6 shows the low turbidity characteristic). Resolution 0.1 FTU for samples up to 100 FTU.

Figure 3 Preferential waveguiding of uorescent light by angular changes (courtesy of D.F. Merchant)

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Figure 4

Fluorescent injector (courtesy of D.F. Merchant)

3) absorption: 0.1100% (measured as percentage transmission at peak wavelength through a 10-mm path), with resolution less than 1%. The device shows almost zero drift from calibration when in use. The output is monitored and changes corrected for by reference monitoring. Water is exposed only to the inside of the tube so that fouling is reduced to a minimum. The sensor tube is simple to clean when required, and offers no restriction to ow. The majority of the system cost and complexity is in the detection and processing electronics so the tube assembly can be replaced if damaged. The tube dimensions are chosen for the ow used and ranges required. The advantages of the LJMU sensor design over brebre or lensed bre probes for absorption measurement, or excitation and 90 detection for uorescence measurement, include the fact that the inherently low coupling efciency of sensors, using the distal end-face of bres to collect light from illuminated uids, increases the complexity of detection and the power required from the excitation source. Thus high-powered lasers and photomultiplier/avalanche diode detectors are required, resulting in high system cost and increased size. Use of conventional undoped bres for light collection would result in the need for separate optical lters and gratings. The ability of FPOF to collect and guide light incident over its whole surface area, renders it more effective than bre evanescent wave absorption/excitation techniques. Finally the requirement that the bres in such systems be in direct contact with the test uid can lead to bre surface fouling, and damage if particulate matter is present.

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Figure 5 Response of optical bre uorimeter to uorescence (courtesy of D.F. Merchant)

Figure 6 Response of optical bre uorimeter to turbidity (courtesy of D.F. Merchant)

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4.5 Toxicity sensor The toxicity biosensor (Merchant et al., 1998) uses the uorosensor described above in section 4.4 to measure the uorescence generated by a toxicity assay, which produces uorescein as the indicative measurand. The uorescence is generated when living micro-organisms (Chlorella spp. algae) in aqueous suspension hydrolyse uorescein diacetate (FDA) to uorescein, which uoresces at 515 nm when excited at wavelengths below 490 nm. The hydrolysis reaction is proportional to the metabolic rate of the organisms and is inhibited by the presence of toxins. Therefore, measurement of the rate of increase of uorescent intensity indicates the toxicity of the cell environment. Electroluminescent lm, radiating at around 490 nm, is wrapped round a glass tube containing the cells in water, to which 0.1 ml of stock solution of FDA is added. The uorescent light is collected by scattered coupling into the walls of the glass tube, in which are embedded an array of 1-mm diameter FPOF bres, forming a bundle to transfer the light to a detector, as described in section 4.4. 4.6 Turbidity sensor Fluorescent POFs have been used for turbidity measurements for water quality monitoring. A ow-through sensor has been developed with a linear response over a range 0.1200 FTU, with a sensitivity of 3.3 nW/unit FTU, and a resolution of 0.1 FTU for 01.0 FTU (Chandy et al., 1998; Figure 7). It uses a diffuse, wraparound electroluminescent lm as a light source, to illuminate at all angles, and uorescent bre to detect at all angles. It is known that particles of different sizes scatter light at preferential angles, enabling particle sizing to be performed (Naimimohasses et al., 1995). Traditional turbidity measurement involves the detection of light scattered at 90 to the illumination direction, and has the disadvantage of being unable to detect particle sizes below 5 m, allowing lter break-

Figure 7 Turbidity sensor characteristic: plot of light intensity versus turbidity for sensing and reference bre

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through to occur and the nondetection of dangerous spores such as Cryptosporidium. Tests have shown that the LJMU turbidity sensor has the potential to detect particles that cannot be detected by traditional and conventional means. 5. Enabling technologies Many researchers have manufactured their own specialist POF bre, using research laboratory facilities, for sensing applications (Muto et al., 1989; 1990; 1994; Peng et al., 1998; 1999). However, there are methods of simply altering the optical properties of commercially available POF bre without recourse to polymer manufacture or bre extrusion facilities, by stripping the cladding, adding an extra layer of epoxy, by grooving or by chemical reaction to create a sol-gel. Refractive index proling is obtained by dip-coating the stripped or cladded bre with optical epoxy or sol-gels of dened refractive index. Epoxies have been doped with uorescent compounds to create a uorescent dye-doped cladding. Surface physical gratings have been sucessfully photoinduced into the distal ends and sides of plastic optical bres, using UV laser radiation at 248 nm. Bulk refractive index changes have been photoinduced in PMMA. In addition, techniques have been developed for chemically tapering POFs. These techniques will be described in detail as follows: 5.1 Photoinduced refractive index changes and gratings in POF The technology of Bragg gratings, formed in silica optical bres using UV laser light to create photoinduced refractive index changes, is well established and has found numerous applications in communications and metrology. Gratings in POF lag far behind, with grating formation being reported by just two groups in Liverpool and Australia. In Liverpool, surface physical grating formation was demonstrated in commercial POF supplied by Toray Industries (PGR-FD1000) using a UV excimer laser at 248 nm. A number of incubation pulses (about 90 at 12 Hz) in the preablative regime (below 90 mJ/cm2 ) were applied to the bre using a phasemask to form fringes (Schmitt et al., 1996; Schmitt, 1999). The gratings were revealed by washing with isopropyl alcohol (IPA), which reacts with photoproducts or oligomers of PMMA, to remove the fragments and expose the periodically perturbed surface. This procedure was used to create gratings with a 524-nm period and depth of 250 nm on bre distal ends, and 10-mm long gratings with period 535 nm, on the side of a stripped cladding POF. Such gratings can be used as bre-based grating couplers for sensing refractive index changes, as well as wavelength monitoring. The disadvantage of the technique is that because of the revealing process, optical feedback to enable control and optimization of the procedure is not possible, and in-bre refractive index changes were not achieved. Recent work at LJMU has created refractive index changes within PMMA at a variety of UV wavelengths. The aim of this work is to develop sensing devices in POF using gratings, and refractive index proling by optimizing the effect of

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various wavelengths on photochemical reactions and refractive index modulation in PMMA and other polymers such as polystyrene and CYTOP mixtures used for POF cores and cladding. Refractive index modication is of interest to manufacturers of graded index bres because index proles can be created during bre manufacture. In Australia, Peng et al. (1999) reported a study of the photosensitivity effect in dye-doped polymer optical bre, and the fabrication of gratings in these bres and their preforms, and demonstrated two types of photosensitivity due to either the dopant or the inherent properties of PMMA. Peng et al. (1999) manufactured double-cored monomode PMMA bres in the laboratory, and doped the 3- m diameter twin core with 170 ppm uorescein. A cw argon ion laser emitting at 514 nm was launched into one of the cores of the POF bre to induce a refractive index change, and the fundamental mode was interrogated using a HeNe laser beam at 633 nm at 1 mW, which was launched equally into both cores. The far-eld intensity distribution from each bre formed a fringe pattern, and its fringe shift was recorded for various argon ion laser powers and converted into phase shift. A total phase shift of 15 , corresponding to an induced refractive index change of 3.3 105, was recorded for 0.36 mW for 9 min and 1.08 mW for 53 min. Further work by Peng used an OPO (optical parametric oscillator) to generate pulses of 5 ns width at 10 Hz at wavelengths of 325, 280 and 248 nm, in order to illuminate the twin-cored bre transversely. Fringe shifts up to 10 were observed, due to the photosensitivity of PMMA polymer rather than the uorescein dopant. Peng et al. (1999) also reports the formation of gratings in a polymer bre preform. A grating was written using a phase mask with period of 1.06 m. Two wavelengths of 248 and 325 nm were used to illuminate at a 10-ns period at 5 mJ. At 248 nm, a surface grating was formed. At 325 nm, a bulk grating was formed within the core, due to periodic change in refractive index with photosensitivity effect. Gratings were also formed in multimode laboratory-manufactured POF bre drawn from a preform using 325 nm and a Sagnec interferometer arrangement. The multimode POF formed by Peng et al. (1999) has seven modes as indicated by the seven peaks in the reection spectrum of the grating (Figure 8). Photoinduced refractive index changes have applications in altering the refractive index prole of POF to form GI-POF, and have been investigated alongside other methods such as using a centrifugal eld to generate a composition gradient of monomers (Van Duijnhoven et al., 1998), or using CF4 + H2 plasma surface uorination of PMMA (Bartoli et al., 1998). Miyata et al. (1997) have described doping PMMA with 4-nitrophenyl-N-butylnitrone and illuminating with 330-nm UV light to achieve a 2% refractive index after 60 s. Kumar et al. (1997) describe the formation of surface and volume gratings in polymer optical bres. PMMA doped with benzoquinone can be volume written at blue and green wavelengths. 5.2 Stripping the cladding Removing the cladding from an optical bre and replacing with the measurand is a well known technique used with polymer clad silica (PCS) bre to form

446 Plastic optical bre sensors and devices

Figure 8 Reection spectrum of multimode polymer bre grating Source: Peng et al. (1999)

evanescent eld sensors (Deboux et al., 1995; Macraith et al., 1995). The evanescent portion of the electric eld travelling within the core of the bre penetrates into the cladding layer, and changes in the absorption or refractive index of the cladding perturb the evanescent eld, thus affecting the intensity of the guided modes within the bre core. The cladding was easily removed from polymer-clad silica (PCS) bre using chemical solvents, but initial attempts to remove the cladding from POF were by hand polishing or scraping with a scalpel, causing uneven removal. Eventually a method was devised for removing the cladding from POF using an acetone/water mixture by Bayle and Mateo (1996) and further rened by Merchant et al. (1999). The CYTOP-based cladding on PMMA-cored POF [Raytela POF from Toray Industries (PFU-FB1000)] was removed by soaking in an acetone/water solution. The bre to be stripped was supported on clamps, but with no tension applied. About ve drops of acetone were applied to the bre using a 2 5 cm folded lint-free lens tissue which was hung on the bre. The tissue was immediately rotated and slid along the treatment region to expose the cladding to the solvent, using the ngers. It is possible to detect the removal of the cladding in the form of granules and a corresponding increase in surface friction; 5 or 10 s after the acetone application, about three drops of distilled water are applied to the tissue, and the rubbing continued. When the core is fully stripped, the surface tension reduces again, and the exposed region can be washed in water to remove the acetone. The rst application of the stripped bre was a humidity sensor, described pre-

Bartlett et al. 447

viously in section 4.1, where the cladding was replaced with optical epoxy doped with uorescein salt. A second application was for use as a biolm sensor, where the stripped core of the bre was exposed to biofouling and scaling conditions in a closed-loop water supply. The sensor consisted of a 1-mm diameter multimode plastic bre with a PMMA core of 0.980 mm, surrounded by a thin cladding layer of uorinated PMMA, with its cladding removed over a 5-cm length to form the sensing region. Light from a 660-nm laser diode source was transmitted through the bre and its intensity measured using an ANDO power meter with silicon detector. Biolms were grown under laboratory conditions by using nutrient solutions prepared by adding either 1% yeast extract or 1% glucose nutrients to tap water, which was left over a few days for biolms to form. The bre was immersed in nutrient solution and left for about 220 h for biolm to form (Figure 9). For the rst 60 h, no signicant change occurred in the signal, but over the 60170-h period, the optical intensity change was 2.5 W/h. After this the signal levelled off. The S shaped curve is a product of (a) the penetration depth of the evanescent eld; (b) the build-up of biomass of the biolm to a constant level of about 2 mm. The effect of changing the refractive index of the cladding on the far eld modal distribution of a stripped cladding POF is shown in Figure 10. The POF was illuminated using light from a HeNe laser, focused down using 20 microscope objective to illuminate the bre distal end off-axis, so that the outer order modes were excited to form a doughnut shape when projected onto a screen. As the refractive index of the cladding is varied, the modal pattern is redistributed. Figure 10 shows a cross-section of the centre of the modal pattern, with transverse distance plotted against modal intensity distribution. The two peaks of the intensity distribution varied with refractive index. Uchiyama (1997) describes a POF sensor where the cladding of an Artone bre with norbornene core was removed and replaced with polyisoprene. When immersed in acetone or alkanes, the refractive index of polyisoprene changes from

Figure 9 Biolm sensor characteristic: plot of intensity of light transmitted through the sensor versus time for declad POF biolm sensor (courtesy of R. Philip-Chandy)

448 Plastic optical bre sensors and devices

Figure 10 Graph of far-eld distribution of 1-mm POF, without outer modes preferentially excited, as a function of refractive index of cladding (courtesy of P. Eldridge)

1.52 to 1.46, causing coupling of leaky modes to guided modes within the POF bre, when illuminated with a green LED. The sensor detects acetone concentration from 10 to 100% and applications include detection of gasoline and oil leaks. 5.3 Tapers in POF Tapering is a technique well developed in silica bre and glass optical bre sensors and devices using tapers are numerous. Replacing the cladding with a measurand, and exploiting the increased penetration of the evanescent eld with decreased bre diameter, causes an enhanced interaction with measurands or analytes present at the corecladding interface, or immobilized in this region with a solgel substrate (Macraith et al., 1995) at the tip of a bre probe. Fibres can be reduced to diameters of 1 m, enabling them to penetrate into single cells (Uttamchandani and McCulloch, 1996). Such congurations have been extended to POF to take advantage of its ease of coupling and termination, and low cost leading to throwaway devices. POF bres are typically 1 mm diameter which is very large for medical and biological measurement applications, but tapering reduces the width of the bre tip and enables efcient coupling to glass or PCS bre if necessary. Silica bres are traditionally tapered using heat and pull techniques, but for POF tapers, an alternative technique of chemical etching, has been developed (Merchant et al., 1999) using organic solvents. POF is tapered using chemical solvents to form both end tapers and bi-tapers

Bartlett et al. 449

(Figure 11). Reduction of the POF core diameter increases the evanescent eld penetration of guided modes, so applications include evanescent eld sensing of parameters such as refractive index, and core surface adsorption of chemicals and enzymes, as well as all the other well dened applications of glass bre tapers. The POF tapers can be recoated with a polymer of dened refractive index, or containing uorescent dyes, for sensing applications (Yamakawa, 1997). The CYTOP-based cladding on PMMA cored POF (Raytela POF from Toray Industries (PFU-FB1000)) is removed by soaking in an acetone/water solution. The exposed core of the bre is tapered using a mixture of 60% acetone, 20% distilled water and 20% methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK). The bre region that remains below the solvent surface is uniformly dissolved, producing a linear prole waist region, so that a tapered region is created if the exposure time to the solvent is varied. A continuous change in bre core diameter is produced by slowly removing the bre from the solvent during the etching, as the bre is immersed in the solvent for different times depending on its depth below the surface. Controlling the time and rate of immersion generates tapers with radial diameter proles that vary linearly with length, or which have discrete steps. Biconical bre tapers can be generated by immersing the middle of a length of bre in the solvent. The prole of the bi-conical tapers can be varied from smooth to step prole by controlling immersion. Experiments have shown that 1-mm diameter bres can be reduced to 0.1 mm over a 30-mm length. Applications of POF tapers include mode redistributors, and reduction of the diameter of POF to enable effective coupling to glass bre. 5.4 Physical perturbation of the bre: grooving POF bre can easily be sensitized to bending or deection by cutting grooves in the radial bre surface, to form an optical bre strain sensor.

Figure 11 Photograph of tapered POF (courtesy of D.F. Merchant)

450 Plastic optical bre sensors and devices

Perturbing the surface of POF bre by cutting radial grooves into its surface enhances the bending loss when the bre is curved, so that light transmitted through the bre is attenuated as a function of the deection of the bre (Figure 12). Thus, an optical bre strain gauge is formed where the deection or extension of the bre is related to the opening of each groove. A number of grooves were formed radially into the bre, using a hot scalpel, and the grooves extended into the core. Six grooves were determined as the optimum number to achieve a compromise between insertion losses and sensitivity. The depth to which the grooves extend into the core of the bre was an important factor in determining the sensitivity of the device, and this depth is also ultimately limited by its effect on insertion loss and on the inherent strength of the plastic optical bres. The depth of each groove was 0.5 mm. In order to maximize the bre sensor sensitivity, the grooves were located where the beam exhibits its maximum deection, i.e., approximately at one half of the width of the beam from its base, as in the case of conventional resistance strain gauge location. As the cantilever bent in the presence of the airow, the angle of the grooves varied. The groove angle increased when the airow was facing the sensor and vice versa. These changes of groove angle caused an intensity modulation of the light transmitted through the bre, because light was attenuated at each groove. Changes in intensity can be related to changes in the angle caused by the force inducing the bending of the cantilever, and therefore to the velocity of the uid. The POF strain sensor described was used to form a ow sensor (Chandy et al., 1996; Philip-Chandy et al., 1999) mounted on a square cross-sectioned beam deected by uid ow. Two optical bre strain sensors measured the strain generated in two orthogonal directions, when placed on adjacent sides of the deected beam (Figure 13). Experiments veried that strain magnitude was proportional to the square of velocity magnitude. Vectorial addition of the orthogonal strain

Figure 12

Diagram of grooves cut into POF

Bartlett et al. 451

Figure 13

Schematic of ow sensor (courtesy of N.F. Schmitt)

components gave the strain magnitude and direction. The optical bre strain sensor consisted of a grooved piece of plastic 1-mm diameter bre, with core diameter of 0.980 mm, and cladding thickness 20 m, attached to the beam. As the beam deected, the grooves opened and light was attenuated as a function of the strain experienced by the beam surface (Figure 14). A ow range of 030 m/s can be measured, with a sensitivity of 0.005 units of optical strain per metre. The ow magnitude resolution was 1.4 m/s, with repeatability of 0.3% and negligible hysterisis. Flow direction resolution was 5.9. 5.5 Tailoring the refractive index prole of the bre The ability to couple light transversely, through the sides of a POF optical bre, can be enhanced by coating the cladding with a layer of higher refractive index, of value matching the core (optical epoxy), over a sensitized region of around 6 cm. This causes the bre to be leaky, and for light to be coupled out, or trapped into the core, if it penetrates into the outermost layer. This is, in fact, core electric

452 Plastic optical bre sensors and devices

Figure 14 Characteristic of ow sensor; optical root strain versus magnitude of wind speed for various orientation angles (courtesy of R. Philip-Chandy)

eld modulation in a double-cladded inverse W highlowhigh refractive index proled POF bre, using tunnelling ray resonance (Zhang et al., 1996). Fibres treated as described were used to form a particle concentration sensor. Two, parallel plastic 1-mm diameter bres were placed in the measurand solution containing an aqueous suspension of particles. Light travelling within the transmitting bre leaks out over the sensitized region, undergoes multiple scattering after interaction with the suspended particles and enters the receiving bre, which is similarly sensitized by an extra cladding layer (Figure 15). The light entering

Figure 15 Diagram of particle concentration sensor (courtesy of F.H. Zhang)

Bartlett et al. 453

the receiving bre is in the order of picowatts, but is measured using a 270-Hz chopped 850-nm light source to remove ambient light. The ratio of forward and backscattered light in the receiving bre gives a parameter proportional to particle concentration. The sensor can be used in a point probe or a distributed mode and has measured yeast concentration in the range of 016 g/l with an accuracy of 3% and sensitivity of 3.4 pW/(g/l) (Figure 16). 5.6 Sol-gels in POF Yamakawa (1997) developed a chemical sensor made out of two pieces of POF with claddings removed and ends fused together. The ends were made pointed by drawing while heating, and then a hydrogel (hydrolysed PMMA) was created by immersing the PMMA tip in concentrated sulphuric acid. The sensor end was dipped in uorescein solution, so that the dye was immobilized in the sol-gel. When excited using blue light (488-nm argon ion laser or 470-nm blue LED), the uorescein dye was shown to be sensitive to pH over a range from 9 to 2.5 pH units. 6. Conclusion The recent advances in POF technology have enabled it to be considered as a serious contender for communications applications, and increased sales have reduced the cost of POF connectors and optoelectronic devices. Mirroring the shift from communications into sensors and devices for glass based bre in the 1980s,

Figure 16 Characteristic of particle concentration sensor (courtesy of F.H. Zhang)

454 Plastic optical bre sensors and devices

research groups have developed enabling technologies to sensitize POF to measurands, or to change its characteristics in order to create POF-based sensors and devices. The advantages shown by POF over silica-based bre, such as ease of termination, simple coupling to detectors and emitters, coupled with ruggedness and low cost, combine with the ability to modify POF characteristics using inexpensive techniques, to enable low-cost development of POF sensors and devices. A wide range of attractive sensor technologies have been developed in research labs, and the time may now be ripe for commercial exploitation of their cheap and robust characteristics. Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support provided by Liverpool John Moores University research funds (Physics and Electrical Engineering Units of Assessment), The Royal Society Paul Instrument Fund, The European Commission (CLOOPT N ENV4-CT970634 On-line measurement for preventing fouling when closing industrial process water circuit), EPSRC ROPA GR/M48031, as well as BICC-Corning and Yorkshire Water Services. References
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