Low-Cost 3D Printer Drawn Optical Microfibers for Smartphone Colorimetric Detection

Abstract

A fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer extruder was utilized as a micro-furnace draw tower for the direct fabrication of low-cost optical fibers. An air-clad multimode microfiber was drawn from optically transparent polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) filament. A custom-made spooling collection allows for an automatic variation of fiber diameter between ϕ ∼ 72 to 397 μm by tuning the drawing speed. Microstructure imaging as well as the 3D beam profiling of the transmitted beam in the orthogonal axes was used to show good quality, functioning microfiber fabrication with uniform diameter and identical beam profiles for orthogonal axes. The drawn microfiber was used to demonstrate budget smartphone colorimetric-based absorption measurement to detect the degree of adulteration of olive oils with soybean oil.

Keywords

• 3D printing
• polymer optical fiber
• thermal extrusion
• polyethylene terephthalate glycol
• fused deposition modeling
• smartphone sensor