Laser-Induced Deposition of Carbon Nanotubes in Fiber Optic Tips of MMI Devices

The integration of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into optical fibers allows the application of their unique properties in robust and versatile devices. Here, we present a laser-induced technique to obtain the deposition of CNTs onto the fiber optics tips of multimode interference (MMI) devices. An MMI dev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2019-10, Vol.19 (20), p.4512, Article 4512
Main Authors: Cuando-Espitia, Natanael, Bernal-Martínez, Juan, Torres-Cisneros, Miguel, May-Arrioja, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Addition polymerization
Carbon
carbon nanotubes
Chemical vapor deposition
Deposition
Dispersants
Fiber optics
laser-induced deposition
Lasers
Light
multimode interference
Optical fibers
Optical properties
Polyvinylpyrrolidone
Self image
Sensors
Solvents
Splicing
Surfactants
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Summary:The integration of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into optical fibers allows the application of their unique properties in robust and versatile devices. Here, we present a laser-induced technique to obtain the deposition of CNTs onto the fiber optics tips of multimode interference (MMI) devices. An MMI device is constructed by splicing a section of no-core fiber (NCF) to a single-mode fiber (SMF). The tip of the MMI device is immersed into a liquid solution of CNTs and laser light is launched into the MMI device. CNTs solutions using water and methanol as solvents were tested. In addition, the use of a polymer dispersant polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in the CNTs solutions was also studied. We found that the laser-induced deposition of CNTs performed in water-based solutions generates non-uniform deposits. On the other hand, the laser-induced deposition performed with methanol solutions generates uniform deposits over the fiber tip when no PVP is used and deposition at the center of the fiber when PVP is present in the CNTs solution. The results show the crucial role of the solvent on the spatial features of the laser-induced deposition process. Finally, we register and study the reflection spectra of the as-fabricated CNTs deposited MMI devices.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/S19204512