Ultraminiature Optical Fiber-Tip 3D-Microprinted Photothermal Interferometric Gas Sensors

Optical fiber sensor emerges as a highly promising technology for trace gas detection due to their high sensitivity, remote capability, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. However, the state-or-the-art fiber-optic gas sensors typically use lengthy optical fibers as gas absorption cells or coatings with functional materials to achieve more sensitive gas detection, which poses challenges such as slow response and/or poor selectivity, as well as limitations on their use in confined spaces. Here, an ultraminiature optical fiber-tip photothermal gas sensor via direct 3D micro-printing of a Fabry-Pérot cavity on the end face of a standard single-mode optical fiber is reported. It enables not only direct interaction between light and gas molecules at the fiber output but also remote interrogation through an interferometric read-out scheme. With a low-finesse microcavity of 66 µm in length, a noise equivalent concentration of 160 parts-per-billion acetylene gas is demonstrated with an ultra-fast response time of 0.5 s. Such a small high-performance photothermal gas sensor offers an approach to remotely detecting trace gases for a myriad of applications ranging from in-reactor monitoring to medical diagnosis.