Driving down the Detection Limit in Microstructured Fiber‑Based Chemical Dip Sensors

Abstract

We present improvements to fluorescence sensing in soft-glass microstructured optical fibers that result in significantly improved sensitivity relative to previously published results. Concentrations of CdSe quantum dots down to 10 pM levels have been demonstrated. We show that the primary limitation to the sensitivity of these systems is the intrinsic fluorescence of the glass itself.

Keywords

• soft glass
• dip sensing
• microstructured optical fiber
• quantum dots