Silica optical fibers for a detection of X-ray radiation

Abstract

The special attention has been paid to visualization and monitoring of harmful radiation to quantify the radiation intensity and prevent the undesired exposition. For these purposes, so called radioluminescent materials are widely exploited. Special attention has been paid to the research of luminescence optical fibers, which can be used for a construction of distributed optical sensors. We present a versatile nanoparticle doping approach to Zn2+-doped silica optical fibers. Zinc oxide nanoparticles were applied into porous silica frit by a nanoparticle-doping method providing a preform which was drawn into an optical fiber. The maximum concentration of Zn2+ ions in the fiber was 0.78 at. % causing the refractive index reached the value of 1.459. The fiber outer diameter was 124.8 μm and the fiber core diameter was 14.9 μm matching the standard telecommunication dimension. The fibers exhibited a blue radioluminescence showing the emission maximum at 395 nm. The fiber properties make them worthy of investigation as sensing elements of distributed sensors of high energy radiation.