Hybrid Fibers with Subwavelength-Scale Liquid Core for Highly Sensitive Sensing and Enhanced Nonlinearity
Caoyuan Wang,
Ruowei Yu,
Yucheng Ye,
Cong Xiong,
Muhammad Hanif Ahmed Khan Khushik,
Limin Xiao
Affiliations
Caoyuan Wang
Advanced Fiber Devices and Systems Group, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (MoE), Key Laboratory for Information Science of Electromagnetic Waves (MoE), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Ruowei Yu
Advanced Fiber Devices and Systems Group, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (MoE), Key Laboratory for Information Science of Electromagnetic Waves (MoE), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Yucheng Ye
Advanced Fiber Devices and Systems Group, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (MoE), Key Laboratory for Information Science of Electromagnetic Waves (MoE), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Cong Xiong
Advanced Fiber Devices and Systems Group, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (MoE), Key Laboratory for Information Science of Electromagnetic Waves (MoE), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Muhammad Hanif Ahmed Khan Khushik
Advanced Fiber Devices and Systems Group, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (MoE), Key Laboratory for Information Science of Electromagnetic Waves (MoE), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Limin Xiao
Advanced Fiber Devices and Systems Group, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (MoE), Key Laboratory for Information Science of Electromagnetic Waves (MoE), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Interest grows in designing silicon-on-insulator slot waveguides to trap optical fields in subwavelength-scale slots and developing their optofluidic devices. However, it is worth noting that the inherent limitations of the waveguide structures may result in high optical losses and short optical paths, which challenge the device’s performance in optofluidics. Incorporating the planar silicon-based slot waveguide concept into a silica-based hollow-core fiber can provide a perfect solution to realize an efficient optofluidic waveguide. Here, we propose a subwavelength-scale liquid-core hybrid fiber (LCHF), where the core is filled with carbon disulfide and surrounded by a silicon ring in a silica background. The waveguide properties and the Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) effect in the LCHF are investigated. The fraction of power inside the core of 56.3% allows for improved sensitivity in optical sensing, while the modal Raman gain of 23.60 m−1·W−1 is two times larger than that generated around a nanofiber with the interaction between the evanescent optical field and the surrounding Raman media benzene-methanol, which enables a significant low-threshold SRS effect. Moreover, this in-fiber structure features compactness, robustness, flexibility, ease of implementation in both trace sample consumption and reasonable liquid filling duration, as well as compatibility with optical fiber systems. The detailed analyses of the properties and utilizations of the LCHF suggest a promising in-fiber optofluidic platform, which provides a novel insight into optofluidic devices, optical sensing, nonlinear optics, etc.
