Breath Figures onto Optical Fibers for Miniaturized Sensing Probes
The “lab-on-fiber” technology has been recently proposed as a valuable route for the realization of novel and highly functionalized technological platforms completely integrated in a single optical fiber in communication and sensing applications. As a fol
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Introduction
Recently, the realization of miniaturized and advanced optical fiber devices and the consequent development of technological processes, specialized for the optical fibers, led to the definition of the “lab-on-fiber” concept [1], devoted to the realization of novel and highly functionalized technological platforms completely integrated in a single optical fiber for communication and sensing applications. In this scenario, the creation of micro- and nanostructures on the end facet of optical fibers is of great interest because it may yield versatile optical devices well suited to serve as miniaturized probes for remote sensing applications. Several approaches have been recently introduced to fabricate metallic and dielectric structures on the optical fiber end facet. Some approaches rely on the study of appropriate techniques to transfer planar nanoscale structures, fabricated on a planar wafer by means of standard lithographic techniques, onto the optical fiber end facet. These methods exploit well-assessed fabrication processes developed for planar substrates, but they are
M. Pisco (*) • G. Quero • A. Cusano Optoelectronic Division - Engineering Department, University of Sannio, Corso Garibaldi, 107, 82100 Milan, BN, Italy e-mail: [email protected] A. Iadicicco Department of Technology, University of Naples “Parthenope”, Centro Direzionale Isola C4, 80143 Naples, Italy M. Giordano Institute for Composite and Biomedical Materials, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, piazzale E Fermi1, Portici, 80055 Naples, Italy F. Galeotti Istituto per lo Studio delle Macromolecole, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, via Bassini 15, 20133 Milan, Italy C. Di Natale et al. (eds.), Sensors and Microsystems: Proceedings of the 17th National Conference, Brescia, Italy, 5-7 February 2013, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 268, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-00684-0_45, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
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limited by the final transferring step that plays a fundamental role in determining both the fabrication yield and the performance of the final device [2]. Alternative approaches are based on direct-write patterning of the fiber tip. These methods, based on conventional lithographic techniques adapted to operate on unconventional substrates such as the optical fiber tip, are able to efficiently provide nanostructured devices on the optical fiber, but they require complex and expensive fabrication procedures with a relatively low throughput [2, 3]. In this work, we propose the creation of periodic metallo-dielectric structures on the optical fiber tip by using self-assembly techniques. Specifically, we selected the breath figure (BF) technique for the preparation of patterned polymeric films directly on the optical fiber tip. After this stage, we employ a simple evaporation technique for the conformal deposition of a thin metal layer of gold. Following this simple approach, we fabricated several prototypes of miniaturized sensing probes.
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Fabrication Process
To build meta
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