TY - JOUR
T1 - Ultra-fast polymer optical fibre Bragg grating inscription for medical devices
AU - Bonefacino, Julien
AU - Tam, Hwa Yaw
AU - Glen, Tom S.
AU - Cheng, Xin
AU - Pun, Chi Fung Jeff
AU - Wang, Jian
AU - Lee, Po Heng
AU - Tse, Ming Leung Vincent
AU - Boles, Steven T.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the General Research Fund Project (n1 PolyU 152207/15E) and PolyU Central Grant project 1-ZVGB. JB acknowledges financial support from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council through the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, The Author(s).
PY - 2018/3/1
Y1 - 2018/3/1
N2 - We report the extraordinary result of rapid fibre Bragg grating inscription in doped polymer optical fibres based on polymethyl methacrylate in only 7 ms, which is two orders of magnitude faster than the inscription times previously reported. This was achieved using a new dopant material, diphenyl disulphide, which was found to enable a fast, positive refractive index change using a low ultraviolet dose. These changes were investigated and found to arise from photodissociation of the diphenyl disulphide molecule and subsequent molecular reorganization. We demonstrate that gratings inscribed in these fibres can exhibit at least a 15 times higher sensitivity than silica glass fibre, despite their quick inscription times. As a demonstration of the sensitivity, we selected a highly stringent situation, namely, the monitoring of a human heartbeat and respiratory functions. These findings could permit the inscription of fibre Bragg gratings during the fibre drawing process for mass production, allowing cost-effective, single-use, in vivo sensors among other potential uses.
AB - We report the extraordinary result of rapid fibre Bragg grating inscription in doped polymer optical fibres based on polymethyl methacrylate in only 7 ms, which is two orders of magnitude faster than the inscription times previously reported. This was achieved using a new dopant material, diphenyl disulphide, which was found to enable a fast, positive refractive index change using a low ultraviolet dose. These changes were investigated and found to arise from photodissociation of the diphenyl disulphide molecule and subsequent molecular reorganization. We demonstrate that gratings inscribed in these fibres can exhibit at least a 15 times higher sensitivity than silica glass fibre, despite their quick inscription times. As a demonstration of the sensitivity, we selected a highly stringent situation, namely, the monitoring of a human heartbeat and respiratory functions. These findings could permit the inscription of fibre Bragg gratings during the fibre drawing process for mass production, allowing cost-effective, single-use, in vivo sensors among other potential uses.
KW - bio-sensing
KW - fibre Bragg grating
KW - photosensitive dopant
KW - polymer optical fibre
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047633797&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/lsa.2017.161
DO - 10.1038/lsa.2017.161
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85047633797
SN - 2095-5545
VL - 7
SP - 17161
JO - Light: Science and Applications
JF - Light: Science and Applications
IS - 3
ER -