Fluorescent Bulk Waveguide Sensor in Porous Glass: Concept, Fabrication, and Testing

Abstract

In this work, we suggest the new concept of sensing elements—bulk waveguides (BWGs) fabricated by the laser direct writing technique inside porous glass (PG). BWGs in nanoporous materials are promising to be applied in the photonics and sensors industries. Such light-guiding components interrogate the internal conditions of nanoporous materials and are able to detect chemical or physical reactions occurring inside nanopores especially with small molecules, which represent a separate class for sensing technologies. After the writing step, PG plates are impregnated with the indicator—rhodamine 6G—which penetrates through the nanoporous framework to the BWG cladding. The experimental investigation proved the concept by measuring the spectral characteristics of an output signal. We have demonstrated that the BWG is sensitive to ethanol molecules captured by the nanoporous framework. The sensitivity of the peak shift in the fluorescence spectrum to the refractive index of the solution is quantified as 6250 ± 150 nm/RIU.