FABRICATION AND TESTING OF NANOSCALE THICKNESS METAL CYLINDER FIBER

Date of Award

May 2015

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Advisor(s)

Philipp Kornreich

Keywords

Coated Core Fiber, Metal Cylinder Fiber, Optical fiber, Photonics, Surface Plasmon Resonance, Plasma oscillation, Thin Metal Film

Subject Categories

Engineering

Abstract

Surface Plasmon Resonance(SPR) is the excitation by light of a surface plasmon wave propagating inside a thin noble metal film (often gold, silver or copper) deposited on the top of a dielectric. SPR finds many applications in sensing and detection such as labon-chip, color based biosensor, etc. Present SPR construction methods require large bulky equipment which is only suitable for lab applications. In this dissertation we show how SPR

sensors can be constructed for commercial applications by using novel coated fiber optics. These fiber optic sensors are made using a thin metal fiber layer deposited in between the dielectric mediums of optical fiber, i.e. core and cladding. The transfer of energy from the cladding to the surface plasmons on the metal layer is maximized when the electric field polarization of the fiber layers are aligned perpendicular/radially to the metal coating surface. These SPR based sensors are sensitive to changes in the refractive index within the evanescent field region near a metal-dielectric interface which supports charge density oscillations due to the molecular interactions occurring (surface plasma oscillation along the metal dielectric interface) in this region. This dissertation also discusses the optical

fiber physics in combination with SPR that can be used for detection and sensing of various (bio)chemical materials like detecting the strain due to a change in the refractive index or sensing the presence of specific markers in biosamples etc.

This dissertation provides a detailed analysis of (i) electromagnetic wave propagation in optical fiber and specialized fiber optics with guided modes; (ii) dispersion equation and calculation of their cutoff conditions; (iii) the SPR fabrication process; (iv) a comparative study of performance of the SPR sensors, considering metal film coatings with optical characteristic at 10-20 nm. This report also demonstrates the (v) process of fabricating and optical physics of building nm optical light source; (vi) fabrication process and testing of Gold, Copper, Silver, Aluminum alloy metal cylinder fiber; (vii) effect of SPR in metal cylinder; (viii) comparative study of optical spectrum response for different metal film fiber and (ix) use of metal cylinder fiber for sensing application.

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